Withholding environment: refugee housing between law, market, and informality in post-2015 Berlin

Abstract

Germany’s legal, bureaucratic, and housing structures came under pressure following the arrival of nearly one million refugees in 2015. In cities such as Berlin, existing housing shortages combined with restrictive regulations, temporary accommodation, and informal solutions to shape refugees’ experiences. Drawing on 36 interviews with Syrian refugees, governmental actors, and NGO representatives, this article introduces the ‘withholding environment’: a form of governance that guarantees minimal security while deferring autonomy, permanence, and equal access. We examine three interconnected dimensions: legal withholding through residency regulations limiting mobility; spatial withholding through ‘Tempohomes’, intended as temporary but operating as quasi-permanent accommodation; and porous withholding through informal brokers offering costly solutions to residency and housing problems. We argue that refugees in Berlin were not abandoned: they received temporary accommodation and conditional social benefits, while remaining confined and denied stability and substantive integration.