At the 10th meeting of the Central Committee of the SED on October 2, 1973, an ambitious housing construction program was adopted: Between 1976 and 1990, a total of 2.8 to 3.0 million apartments were to be newly built or renovated. Since the “solution of the housing question” was declared to be “at the core of the social policy program,” the housing construction program assumed a central role within the framework of the “unity of economic and social policy.” By 1989, almost 1.7 million new apartments had been built from prefabricated components and another 1.0 million had been modernized. In the allocation of housing, preference was to be given to workers, retirees, large families, and young married couples.