It was an early Wednesday morning, and seventy people were already in line at a Wohnungsbesichtigung, a public house viewing in Berlin. Sam Albaid, who had been looking for a stable apartment for months, clutched his folder of documents as he approached the representative: credit report, ID, references, everything he had been told he needed. The man skimmed the papers until he reached one detail.
“You’re with the job center?” he asked, referring to the government office that dispenses social benefits.
Sam nodded.
“Don’t even try it,” the representative said. “They will not even read it.”
“Why? Is this legal?” Sam asked.
“No,” the man said, “but that’s what’s gonna happen.”
Sam never had a chance, not because of missing documents, but because he received social benefits. Like thousands of other refugees in Berlin, he found himself trapped in a contradiction at the very center of Germany’s integration system. When Sam arrived from Syria via Istanbul in 2017, he entered the long pre-work phase required of most asylum seekers: months, sometimes years, of German-language classes, cultural orientation sessions, and vocational integration courses. Only after clearing these hurdles could he even begin applying for real jobs. At the same time, he had to navigate the slow asylum process, which could take months or years.
In this early stage, refugees cannot work full-time, and many cannot work at all. Without income, they rely on benefits to survive. Yet, once they do, landlords often shut them out, rendering them unable to secure permanent housing at precisely the moment they need it most.
Niklas Harder, Co-head of the Integration Department at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research, explained the logic he hears from landlords again and again. Yes, a job center letter means rent is guaranteed by the state. But from a landlord’s perspective, Harder said, it signals something else entirely: “They get relatively little in terms of quantity,” he said. “So a lot of people want to ask higher rents, and they don’t accept tenants who are on social benefits.”
To understand this dynamic, one has to understand Germany’s social housing system and what’s gone wrong with it. In Germany, “social housing” refers to rent-controlled apartments whose rent levels are capped and legally compatible with what social benefits will cover. These units are, in theory, the solution for people like Sam: affordable, regulated, and protected from the volatility of the private market.
But Berlin simply does not have enough of them. The stock of social housing has shrunk dramatically over the past decades as units age out of regulation. Demand, meanwhile, has surged, driven by demographic change, urban growth, and successive waves of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other conflicts.
As a result, new arrivals who could theoretically pay rent with their benefits cannot actually rent anything. And the unsubsidized private market is even more out of reach. Berlin’s private rents have risen so sharply that even refugees who do find work struggle to afford them.
The consequences are visible in shelters across the city. People remain in overcrowded temporary housing far longer than the system was designed for. The shelters were meant to serve as short-term landing pads; instead, families spend months or years waiting for a chance at something permanent.
Even those who might want to escape Berlin’s impossible housing market face another hurdle: German federalism. Refugees are assigned to a specific municipality when they receive benefits, and those benefits, including housing support, can only be used within that region.
“You’re basically assigned to an office that pays out your social benefits,” Harder explained. “And they will only pay for rent that is in their region of responsibility.”
This means that even if more affordable housing exists in a neighboring state, beneficiaries are effectively anchored in place. They cannot simply move to where housing is available. Federalism, designed for administrative order, inadvertently becomes a barrier to mobility and therefore to integration.
Together, these constraints create a vicious trap: without a job, refugees cannot rent an apartment. Without an apartment, they cannot easily get a job.
At first glance, this seems overstated. Surely someone can get a job while living in a shelter? But in practice, employers require a stable address for payroll, tax documents, and background checks. Banks require a stable address to open an account. Employers look for proof that a potential employee can reliably stay in the city. And for refugees juggling appointments with the migration office, language courses, legal processes, and shelter rules, demonstrating that stability becomes nearly impossible.
This is especially paradoxical in Germany, a country facing a major labor shortage and desperately trying to bring more workers into the economy. But integration into the workforce is not as simple as filling open positions.
“Even the positions in unskilled labor in Germany demand a minimum amount of language and literacy,” Harder said. For refugees with limited formal education, this represents a major hurdle. For those who are highly educated (doctors, engineers, teachers) another problem arises: without advanced German fluency, professional credential recognition remains unreachable. A Syrian doctor, for example, must communicate flawlessly with patients, colleagues, and medical institutions.
The focus here falls on what comes after a refugee leaves the asylum and state-run accommodation system, or tries to. During the initial phase, refugees live in shelters where they are provided food, basic furniture, and a shared room. But the transition out of shelters is exactly where most refugees become stuck.
Those who succeed face discrimination from landlords, steep deposits, guarantor requirements, and bureaucratic tangles. Those who don’t remain in limbo: unable to build a stable life, unable to advance in language learning, and unable to integrate socially or economically.
There are models that work. Programs like ARRIVO connect refugees with apprenticeships and skilled trades. Some NGOs help with bureaucratic navigation: [“registration for all,” ] These programs show what is possible when integration efforts are aligned across housing, employment, and social services.
But they remain exceptions in a system that too often leaves people behind.
Berlin’s housing market has become both a mirror and a test of Germany’s broader promise to integrate those who came seeking safety. The gap between that promise and the reality, between the job center letter and the closed doors it triggers, reveals the structural contradictions refugee communities must navigate.
When Sam described his language courses, his early hopes, and the spiraling difficulties he faced afterward, his story illuminated the heart of the issue: racism, housing discrimination, and labor-market barriers are not separate challenges. They reinforce one another.
Refugees are fighting for the basic building blocks of belonging: a stable home, a job that pays, and the dignity of agency over their futures.
