Inconsistent practice for rent guidelines between municipalities
Published: Saturday, Jun 29th 2024, 06:50
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According to the association Öffentlichkeitsgesetz.ch, many of the 552 municipalities in five northern Swiss cantons have not adjusted their rent guidelines for social welfare recipients for years. The upper limits set therefore vary greatly.
For example, the rent limits for a family of four ranged from 935 to 2250 francs excluding ancillary costs in the municipalities surveyed, as Öffentlichtkeitsgesetz.ch reported on Saturday. In collaboration with the Reflekt research team, the association had requested data on the rental costs of social welfare recipients from all municipalities in the cantons of Zurich, Aargau, Solothurn, Basel-Landschaft and Basel-Stadt. The analysis of the data was published on the website www.mietlimite.ch.
According to the website, it was not previously known how high the municipalities set the rent limits for social welfare recipients. The massive differences between the official rent limits of the municipalities and the average market rent would raise questions about the calculation methods.
Oberwil-Lieli AG and Brislach BL were listed on the website as extreme examples: While in Oberwil-Lieli the rent for a person receiving social assistance is 452 francs below the current market price for a one to one-and-a-half room apartment, in Brislach it is 441 francs above.
Less money in Zurich and Aargau
In general, social welfare recipients in the cantons of Aargau and Zurich receive significantly less money on average for rent than in the cantons of Solothurn or Basel-Landschaft, according to the website. In Aargau, the limit for a four-person household is on average 152 francs below the average market rent for a three- to three-and-a-half-room apartment. In Zurich, it is 226 francs. In the canton of Solothurn, on the other hand, the limit for a four-person household is on average CHF 18 above the average market rent for a three- to three-and-a-half-room apartment. In the canton of Basel-Landschaft, it is 40 francs.
According to Öffentlichkeitsgesetz.ch, the data was requested from the municipalities between December 2023 and May 2024. According to the website www.mietlimite.ch, 543 of the 552 requested municipalities had disclosed their rent limits by the end of the survey on June 7. According to Öffentlichkeitsgesetz.ch, this was the largest series of inquiries of this kind initiated by the media in Switzerland to date. It was carried out in cooperation with the editorial teams of "Der Landbote", "Tages-Anzeiger", "Limmattaler Zeitung", "Aargauer Zeitung", "Solothurner Zeitung" and "bz".
www.mietlimite.ch
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