Federal level
There is no explicit reference to housing in the Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG) beyond the protection of the inviolability of the home. All attempts to include housing as a fundamental right or state objective in the Basic Law (GG) have failed so far in Germany. Nevertheless, the constitution does provide for the protection of social human rights. This is because the guarantee of human dignity in conjunction with the principle of the welfare state gives politicians a mandate to regulate and shape policy.
Federal state level or Länder level
Four federal state constitutions provide for a right to adequate housing or living space. These are the constitution of the Free State of Bavaria, the constitution of Berlin, the state constitution of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen and the constitution of the Free State of Saxony. Although the right to housing is thus explicitly named in these state constitutions, according to the prevailing opinion in literature and jurisprudence, these regulations are only attributed an objective legal obligation in the sense of state objective provisions. This therefore means that the respective Länder should strive for this state.
The state constitutions of Brandenburg, the constitution of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the constitution of Lower Saxony, the constitution of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the constitution of Rhineland-Palatinate, the constitution of the state of Saxony-Anhalt and the constitution of the Free State of Thuringia explicitly regulate housing provision and housing promotion as state objective provisions.
International human rights conventions
