The Algorithm is Racist

I am looking for more than a year for a home in Berlin. For many reasons, it is difficult for me to get a home. Mainly because I am a black-head and I live on Jobcenter. I have a small child which might be a help, as some people might feel mercy when a child is involved, but in my case, it makes my search more difficult. The other parent lives in Alt-Treptow, and living there for two years my child is used to the environment, knows all corners, Spielys, Bakeries, etc. It doesn’t feel right to move too far from there, to introduce such a big change, so I have tried to look in the surrounding area. The other topic is my health, I have a chronic problem in my nose, a bigger topic in my life that I am making a film on it right now, I have to find a home that have clean air. Leaving on a big street is like killing myself.

My search has been gone in waves of hopelessness and hope. I am having such a strong belief that with my position in this society I can not find a suitable home. I think I had to spend most of my energy just to make myself able to move and to search, just to leave the home and start looking. Sometimes I was so done with the feeling of exclusion and fail that I didn't even try for weeks to do anything for it, and some times I had a weekly program to look and visit for homes. showing clearly my under-functioning and over-functioning sides. Some friends tell me it is only a film in head, that once I start looking I might also find something. Maybe yes, but what I miss is some success stories. To see other people with my situation getting a fair home. Because all of my BPOC migrant friends had to go far far away. To Weissensee. Adlershof. Tegel. Each time I see another one moving to such places, I feel a bitter taste in my mouth.

I have visited a lot of genossenschafts in Berlin. At least 15. A white german friend of mine was accompanying me as he found a home for himself like this and he beleived he has the skills to deal with all of these offices. After visiting the 5th office it was clear for me in the first minute how will it work. just from the way they say hello, their gaze, their look, the unspoken feeling in the room was shouting to me are they racist or not. One of them, in Sonnenallee was the worst. I visit this office two times, in 2014 and 2018. Both times, the same person, told me they don’t accept any new members, as they are overloaded with applicants. A clear lie, as anyways their tenants will die someday and some new people have to move into that house, so there is always news people moving in.

Then, one day visiting another white friend, a middle class abled white woman, I realized she lives in the same Genossenschaft. I got amused and asked how did she make it? She told me, actually, she was just walking on Sonnenallee and saw there is a Genossenschaft here, so she just entered the office and Bamm, she just got a home there. A bitter taste is still in my mouth, to see how much our realities can be different. How much time I had to put on this topic since I moved into Berlin that other people just had it free. How many more interesting things I could do at this time? How does some people get more successful because they have the basics of their life, like housing, easily provided and how some other people have to always struggle just with the basics, having a home, or Aufenthalt, or health, or a basic income that they can not engage in anything more elaborated in their life.

Being an artist, or activist is for some people a side-work, something fun. And for some people, it’s just impossible. I felt many times if I want to make a film, can not just make it on any topic. my free time is so limited that I always have to keep concentrated, focusing on the most important ideas that come to my mind. time is gold, this I understood once that I started to struggle with the basics of my life.

There was one Genossenschaft that I especially had a good feeling about: Treptow-Nord. They were super nice to us and even, in the end, they wished us luck and that they hope we get a good home there. They put me in their system and said they will contact me once a possibility comes up. How long will it take? They couldn’t say. The machine works on its own! It’s now 6 months that I am waiting for the machine to let me see a home, nothing yet. Last month a friend of mine proposed that we make some small flyers and put on the streets, that if someone knows about a home or can announce me as a Nachmieter I would pay them 600 Euros as the present. We did it and put it around Plaenterwald. Our bad luck, exactly the day after it rained and ruined our flyers. But still, after two weeks we got a phone call, from an older person called Fritz. Fritz saw our flyer in front of Netto and was very engaged to help me find a home. Even though he didn’t have a home for me he wanted to tell me how did he find a home for himself. He explained there is this Genossenschaft, called Treptow-Nord, that he just went there

3 months ago, put his name in the system and Bingo! after less than 3 months he got a very affordable home from them. A bitter taste in my mouth. Even the damn algorithm is racist.