Online to the office: Housing benefit online starts in Chemnitz
In Chemnitz, citizens have been able to submit their housing benefit applications online since this week. This service is initially available for all initial, continued and increased applications for a rent subsidy (rented accommodation). All data and the necessary supporting documents that can be uploaded there are forwarded directly to the responsible employee. Applicants are shown in the system exactly which evidence must be provided in accordance with the information provided in the online application.
All administrative services can be accessed via the City of Chemnitz service portal. The new digital administrative service can be accessed here.
Housing benefit is a subsidy to ensure adequate and family-friendly housing. This social benefit is granted on application. If the legal requirements are met, there is a legal entitlement to housing benefit. Housing benefit is paid to tenants of residential property (rent subsidy) and owners of owner-occupied property (encumbrance subsidy).
With the federal government's housing benefit reform at the beginning of this year, there was a need to digitally revise the entire process. This process was implemented by the Saxon Institute for Municipal Data Processing (SAKD) as the coordinating body together with the municipal service providers, the Saxon State Ministry for Regional Development (SMR) and the two housing benefit offices of the cities of Chemnitz and Leipzig.
The "Housing Benefit Online" service is a further building block in the implementation of the Online Access Act (OZG). This law obliges the federal and state governments to offer all suitable administrative services in Germany digitally via administrative portals and to link their administrative portals to form a network. In Saxony, the Free State and its local authorities are working together on a joint project to achieve this. In future, citizens, companies and associations will be able to easily access online administrative services via the Saxon cross-administrative service portal Amt24. The prerequisite for using all services is at least the one-off and free registration and creation of a service account (item "My service account") on the Amt24 service portal.