World's oldest social housing still charges just 88 cents rent

WHEN German pensioner Angelika Stibi got the keys to her new home in the southern region of Bavaria this year, a huge financial weight was lifted from her shoulders.

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Stibi has to pay just 88 euro cents (R18) a year for her apartment in the social housing complex known as the Fuggerei, where rents have not gone up since the Middle Ages.

Founded in 1521 by the wealthy businessman Jakob Fugger and believed to be the oldest such project in the world, the Fuggerei in the city of Augsburg provides living space for 150 residents facing financial hardship.

Consisting of several rows of yellow terraced buildings with green shutters and sloping red roofs, the complex still resembles a medieval village.

“I had a truly wonderful life until I was 55,” said Stibi, a mother of two in her 60s from Augsburg.

After she was diagnosed with cancer, “everything went from bad to worse” and she was left with no other option but to apply for social housing, she said.

Waiting lists are long for apartments in the walled enclave not far from Augsburg city centre, with most applicants having to wait “between two and six or seven years”, according to resident social worker Doris Herzog.