Germans took to the street earlier this week to protest against the unaffordable costs of homes and rents in Frankfurt, the country’s financial capital.
Mrs Merkel held an emergency “housing summit” in Berlin last month to look for a solution to the shortage, concluding the country needs 1.5million more flats to be built over the next four years.
But this solution could be too little too late for Germans as, anger against the CDU which has been ruling the state of Hesse since 1999 in a coalition with the liberal FDP, could see them take their rage to the polling station at tomorrow’s election.
Claus Michelsen, an economist at the German Institute for Economic Research, said: “The state failed to do its homework.
“In the 2000s, there was talk about the ageing of society and population decline, but not much about urbanisation.
“The state should have made available land for new construction and invested in social housing.
“But that was neglected.”
The working-class neighbourhood of Ostend, Frankfurt, is one of the areas most affected by the crisis, as it has seen house prices and rents soaring in the last 18 years.
Angela Merkel is facing a defeat at tomorrow’s election in Hesse (Image: GETTY)
As the city has grown more attractive to professionals after the arrival of the European Central Bank in 2014, the shortage of flats and the rise of their costs spiked.
This has helped creating a shortfall of about 40,000 flats, according to Mike Josef, head of planning and housing in Frankfurt’s city government.
He continued: “The problem has reached the middle of society.
“Even teachers and lawyers struggle to find affordable housing.”
People who had lived in the district for decades has seen it changing – and their neighbours been forced out of their homes by the rising prices.
Angela Merkel is facing criticism over the housing crisis gripping Germany (Image: GETTY)
Michael Boedecker, who has lived in Ostend for 20 years, told the Financial Times: “All this used to be cheap housing, but now it is being cleared out bit by bit.”
Today, a rental apartment goes to the market for almost €20 per square metre, more than double what long-term residents have been used to pay.
Mr Boedecker continued: “All the old tenants are gone.
“This part of the Ostend is changing rapidly.
Angela Merkel’s party could lose its leadership in the state of Hesse (Image: GETTY)
“And if nothing is done about it, the displacement will go on.”
The protests came as polls showed Mrs Merkel’s party facing a second defeat in a month in state elections.
The German chancellor’s party is to receive only 26 percent of the votes tomorrow, according to a survey by pollster Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for broadcaster ZDF – a 12 percent drop compared to the results achieved in 2013.
The Social Democrats (SPD), one of Mrs Merkel’s government allies at a national level, is predicted to fall to 20 percent, far below its result of 30.7 percent in 2013, the survey showed.
The Greens looks set for a big win at tomorrow’s election in Hesse, Germany (Image: GETTY)
On the other hand, the Greens and the right-wing AfD are booming, the survey polling 1,035 voters between October 15 to 17 revealed.
The Greens will be the big winner in the federal state, the poll showed, jumping into second place with 22 percent support, right after the CDU.
The AfD could gain as much as 12 percent of the votes, a result that would make the party be represented in all state parliaments of Germany for the first time.
Such a dreadful result for Mrs Merkel would come after the CSU, the CDU’s sister party and ally in Berlin’s parliament, suffered its weakest election performance since 1950 in a the Bavarian election, losing 16 seats, while the SDP lost 20 seats.