DACH GESUCHT!

Imagine you are young, perhaps 19 or 20 years old, and you are moving to a foreign city to study, 500 or even 5,000 kilometers away from home. It all happened so quickly, and suddenly you find yourself in a new, foreign country or even on another continent. Where will you stay? Where will you sleep today and in the coming days?

About one in eight people in Karlsruhe are students. They come from 160 countries and all continents to set the course for their future lives in Karlsruhe. Given the large number of students in our city, one key question arises: Where will all these students find a place to live?

The situation can certainly be described as precarious. Only just under 12% of students get one of the approximately 4,400 places in student residences. Although the student union is working hard to accommodate at least 15% of students in student residences in the medium term, there is a lack of suitable and attractive building sites. A further 600 places are to be created. Those who do not get a place in a dormitory have to look for accommodation on the open housing market. And that is not always easy!

An average of 3,500 rooms are arranged annually through the private room referral service of the student union. This means that, together with the dormitory places, a maximum of 7,900 accommodations are available for young people from all over the world. No wonder, then, that finding a place to live has become one of the biggest challenges in the lives of Karlsruhe students.

Since 2012, the Science Office of the City of Karlsruhe has been organizing the housing campaign DACH GESUCHT! (ROOF WANTED!) in cooperation with the student union. The initiative draws attention to the housing situation in Karlsruhe with eye-catching and unusual campaigns in public spaces and encourages homeowners to rent out unused living space to students and young people in training.

The free private room service, which has been operated by the student union for many years and ↗ free private room referral service, which can be reached at 0721 6 90 91 92, helps numerous students every semester to find suitable and affordable accommodation.

Highlights from recent years have generated enormous media coverage:
As part of the campaign, students have slept in a shop window in Karlsruhe, advertised themselves as roommates at the Talente Camp on Schlossplatz, and even First Mayor Gabriele Luczak-Schwarz took part in a flat-sharing casting to demonstrate how difficult it is for students in Karlsruhe to find accommodation.

You can view a slideshow of the campaign highlights here: