A day in the life
Recently it was suggested to me (ever so kindly) I should not tweet so much about Ukrainians' issues here. A Substack post instead (sarcasm off).
To be fair, they caught me off guard. I showed up for an in person meeting and expected to discuss issues, which we did do, but only after it was explained to me by several people that me taking to a public space like Twitter to describe what I am hearing from Ukrainians is counterproductive, i.e. making their work harder.
I almost fell off my chair.
Austria is not alone in Europe in being on the verge of a far right, pro-Russia takeover. There are fears about the upcoming election in Slovakia this weekend, where that seems to be a real-possibility. We already know how Hungary behaves within the EU, and towards Ukrainians more specifically (if you have not, do read this about my bus ride from hell back to the EU via Hungary last August).
Perhaps because I grew up in America, or as the daughter of an immigrant who was granted political asylum in Canada and never bit his tongue, I have always believed in free speech and in transparency. Since day one at the train station in Vienna when the war began, I wrote about what I was seeing and hearing. I have been asked (that is putting it nicely) in the past to delete tweets. I did not delete them. I have been verbally threatened by NGOs who didn’t like how their work was portrayed by the stories I shared from Ukrainians dependent on these NGOs for solutions. So in a sense, I am fairly used to being yelled at, although it doesn’t make it any more pleasant. It still leaves an awful taste in your mouth.
As an unpaid volunteer, I, alongside many others, try to help Ukrainians in Austria navigate their new liveds here, and there is a whole range of issues we try to answer questions about. Sometimes I turn to Twitter for answers, sometimes as a cry for help, sometimes to share info, and sometimes simply to scream WTF into the void because I don’t have a team or a break room where I can pull someone aside and say “can you believe this?”.
There seems to be a common theory in Austria amongst the “good guys” (I use this broadly to refer to many people who work within the system in all different roles and genuinely want to help make things better) that in order to get shit done, don’t talk about it publicly. Much of the political center and left lives and operates in fear of the far right, as if the election in 2024 is already lost. Yes, the far right is polling at 30%, but I cannot say I agree with the argument that if refugee issues are talked about more broadly this will push the far right to an even higher percentage of the vote. It would be a bit like asking Democrats in America to be quiet on abortion rights in order not to upset the Trumpies. I don’t understand the logic. I also observe that a lack of ongoing media coverage gives many voters and taxpayers here the impression that everything is working for Ukrainians. It is not all working, far from it, but it is an unseen struggle. I have tried throughout the past year and a half to shed some light and give voice to those whose voices would otherwise not be heard. Because I am not employed by any state or NGO, I can speak freely, something many of those working in an official capacity within in the refugee aid space cannot.
Whether anyone wants to consume what I share is a different matter. I do not have the impression at the moment that there is any great interest in the plight of Ukrainians in Europe, which is completely understandable given the war is not new, we are bombarded by new horrific news every day: Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo, everywhere you look autocrats are using the moment of weakness of an upcoming geriatric election in the U.S. and an often paralysed EU to act, with force, resulting in ordinary civilians paying the highest price. I am also not commenting at all on the other refugee crises Europe faces because it is not my area of expertise due to my own language skills. I am aware, but do not comment, as I do not interact personally with the affected groups, and there are experts with far more knowledge than me who should speak to this.
But when it comes to the Ukrainians, by now, I have probably a better idea than most bureaucrats and administrators what daily life looks like for people who fled war at home and are trying to rebuild a life within the constraints of Grundversorgung, the German word for “basic care” which a majority of Ukrainians in Austria receive. This public aid has complicated restraints on paid work in a labor market Ukrainians have free access to otherwise. The “how much you can earn” rules act like Kafkian handcuffs (more on that later).
I therefore thought it would be helpful to illustrate what just one day in our lives looks like. So here is my Monday, September 25. These are (some of) the conversations and texts and issues I was advising on, alongside doing my normal mom duties: a trip to the grocery store, cooking up two big pots of homemade chicken soup, a few loads of laundry, running to school because middle child forgot something she needed by 4pm, meeting a fellow volunteer for a quick coffee in the late afternoon.
9:00 AM tweet about 11 empty envelopes for grocery cards, receive 1 + 1 + 9 cards, print and fill them, quick walk to the post box, thank you tweets.
9:26 AM write in my Telegram chat with 2,773 Ukrainians in Austria that I am out of Hofer cards and please don’t suggest to people to contact me directly. Fundraising is hard. We hit the pause button. Don’t want to make promises I cannot keep.
10:30 AM text from a local volunteer in Graz. Can I talk? She calls me. Ukrainian family of 5 including wheelchair-bound grandmother arrived from Romania on Friday to the arrival center in Graz. They were assigned social housing and transported there over weekend. A monastery run by an NGO in the mountains. Family decided it was not suitable due to remote location, they have no car, living conditions, they return to arrival center. In arrival center they are told if you refuse what you were given you must leave, there is no chance to ask for something else. Threatened to have to repay €400 of transport costs. Volunteer asks me what to do, who to call. I suggest BBU hotline, but explain it may be the case that they really have no other option if they said no to what they were given. She sends me the paperwork so I can help her read the German. There is already a protocol describing the refusal. I also offer the number of someone who sometimes has social housing, but warn I cannot promise anything. She tells me there are free apartments in Graz, but the state is sending people to villages, using the argument “the schools are full”. I nod. I heard this last week too from someone else. Is there a boss you can call and fix this? No, I explain. There is no “boss”. Each Austrian state independently manages its own response to people asking for Grundversorgung and social housing. There is no also general you can call when the troops are rude or lacking empathy.
11:12 AM a mom writes “I really need advice. My son is in 4th grade in an Austrian class. In May, he passed the MIKA-D test, but he was given a report card without grades. In October, they said he will take the test again. We want to apply to gymnasium. But what about the grades, will he receive grades this semester? In his report card it says “Außerordenlicher Schüler”. What does this mean? Please advise.” Having three kids who managed the transition from Volkschule to gymnasium (a struggle for even many Austrian families), I knew what to answer. I advise her to talk with the school director, explain you want to apply for gymnasium, explain your son will please need to be graded this year (therefore status please changed to normal student), and also warn her that any “3”s on the report card (the equivalent of a “C” but handed out far more regularly in Austria than in U.S.) make gymnasium acceptance difficult, even for local kids who grew up speaking German. Quick historical explanation for the thousandth time about how the Austrian school system unfortunately divides children at the age of 10, and how this still suits the “elite” who can afford to tutor their children into success. I reiterate you will need 4th grade first semester grades to apply. I try to give her information while at the same time not saying the quiet part out loud: the odds by design are stacked against even the smartest Ukrainian. No grades = no written exams in German = cannot apply for gymnasium = must go to middle school.
11:32 AM another mom writes “we have the same situation, also 4th grade. My daughter is already ahead of the school curriculum in English and mathematics. But unfortunately she will not receive grades in any subject until after the MIKA-D test is completed. This was told to us by two different school directors. So it is better and much easier for a child to enter higher school here with a Ukrainian diploma than to study here at the Volkschule…” I know what she means by that and I cannot argue. I explain to her as well you must speak on the local level, explain your plans, and ask to be graded. I also provide both women privately with the email address of someone appointed in an official capacity to help Ukrainians navigate education issues here. I try to manage expectations saying there is a system, one can give advice, but an individual alone cannot change a system. Like many other things here, real change requires legislative action, and you don’t see or hear even rumblings in that direction. Austrian parents have been complaining for years, decades (!) about an unreformed outdated school system. Nothing changed.
11:49 AM a woman living in Styria asks a very simple question to which there is no simple answer: how much can she earn working part-time without losing her basic care payments (Grundversorgung). This brings up another German word: Zuverdienstgrenze, or limit on earnings. And so the fun begins! If you receive Grundversorgung in Austria, i.e. you ask the state for either a housing subsidy (max €330pm per family) if you rent privately or free housing in a dorm or hotel, and you receive a monthly cash payment (this can range from €40 to €260), then there are limits on how much you can earn legally before all your aid gets cut off. The federal government actually passed a law (which I still cannot find online despite really trying) to increase the amount Ukrainians can earn while receiving basic payments, but it was not universally adopted by all Austrian states. So in some states, you can use the new calculation (something with 65% vs 35% over some threshold which I literally cannot explain — this produced by Steiermark is the only thing I can find online), in other states, like Lower Austria, which refused to adopt the new law, you have to use the old calculation (which limits to €110 pm per adult + €80 pm per dependent), and there is a total lack of transparency or even a single online reference calculator. This means that when Ukrainians take a job, part time, they often do so blindly, not knowing until after the fact how much of their benefits will be stripped away. It also keeps many from working legally. Finally, these calculations are made by individual social workers and therefore there is no one to turn to when one wants to dispute a calculation. The woman, living in Steiermark, writes “we calculated on our own that we are a family of 5 and we can therefore earn €430, but we earned €450. So in theory they should only have taken €20 from us, but they took us entirely off of social payments! So I am looking for the law.” I suggest calling the BBU hotline and writing the Steiermark email address.
12:11 PM Another woman writes, “My coordinator came to see me last week. I live with my daughter. He calculated: €110+€80= €190 / 14 salaries / 12 months = €160. How can you work for €160, I have no words. And then why work, it makes more sense than just to sit on benefits?!”. At this point I have to clarify a lot. Which state? Why would they calculate 14 salaries for a part-time job with very limited hours which surely will not pay out a 13th and 14th salary like a “real” job? Then, a tireless volunteer, who is trying to simultaneously submit her own PhD but also knows more about Zuverdienstgrenze than literally anyone in Austria, intervenes to try and shed some light. It matters not just which federal state you live in, but also what kind of accommodation, private or a dorm. The calculation is different depending on your housing type. She knows this from having investigated dozens of cases. But I don’t know this. The Ukrainians don’t know this. Because the rules are not transparently published anywhere!
12:20 PM A woman asks how you can marry a non-Austrian in Austria. She is duly congratulated on the happy news. I share a website with instructions on getting married here at your local municipal registry.
12:42 PM Another woman adds she lives with her son and is allowed to earn €110 +€80 per month. She works once per week for four hours, and is happy to have that. It is better than living on social payments alone, she says. The original poster adds she too was told about €190 a few months ago, and now they say only €160, as they calculated 14 salaries. Can you imagine this much discussion over €30 per month? The I contrast this with the waste you see within the system of red tape, and it just blows your mind. Think of the salary cost of that one guy sitting on the calculator and taking those €30 away.
1:23 PM Tireless volunteer-expert PhD writer makes several long posts about the limits on earnings and the calculations and yet she lost me and I am sure many others after the first few sentences. I have like a mental block in understanding it. In a country so desperate to get refugees to work, why would you limit earnings? Why not simply charge a minimal rent to those working? The more complicated the calculation, the less likely it is to be correctly implemented, and neither side, neither state nor Ukrainian, have a single official source to point to. In addition, some states like Upper Austria take two to three months to “calculate” and during this time, recipients receive nothing. Yes, really.
1:30 PM a mom writes from Lower Austria. She applied for a state subsidy towards the cost of afternoon care in the local kindergarten, as instructed. She uses afternoon care to attend German classes at that time. She was rejected, and they said the subsidy is only for working parents. I look up the page, and the rules, and it is correct, it clearly states in German the subsidy is only for working parents. I explain she must have been subsidised by someone else last year. Maybe the local mayor’s office helped? I give her an email address she can send follow up questions to. I realise a lot of my work is simply being able to Google faster and more efficiently in German. The mom says she is scared to ask again, what if they ask her to pay back the subsidy she received last year? Don’t worry, I joke, only Vienna asks to pay things back later.
1:46 PM a volunteer sends me a message from a family with a severely autistic child in Upper Austria who are struggling to find a kindergarten and support resources. Do I have any ideas? My only suggestion is to seek private funding via an NGO. I remind her of this interview. The family asks which newspaper to contact. They are desperate. “We are a four year old child who has a diagnosis and requires classes with a speech therapist, speech pathologist, and occupational therapist. He does not speak. The diagnosis was confirmed by an Austrian doctor who recommended that he go to kindergarten and work with specialists. We live in the suburbs of Linz, since last year we have been trying to enrol him in kindergarten, they do not directly refuse us, but they constantly find reasons to delay the deadline or simply not take him. But he needs this! Classes with an occupational therapist are held once every two weeks for one hour, the center working with autistic children refused, citing there is a two year waitlist.” The family asks for a journalist to cover their story. I tell the volunteer I need to think about it. I have personally unfortunately lost faith in local media coverage resulting in positive outcomes.
3:30 PM the volunteer in Graz calls me again. The family called the BBU hotline, which was sympathetic to their situation but said they cannot help with alternative housing. They have been given permission to sleep in the arrival center one more night, but the next day, they must leave. They do not know where they will go. I explain I do not think Vienna can accept them, as they have already been entered into the system in Styria. Once you are “affiliated” with a state within Austria, you cannot freely move if you are asking for basic payments. As a free person, paying your own rent and working, you an do what you like, of course.
4:27 PM I hear back from a source in Vienna. Confirms the arrival center here cannot accept Ukrainians who have been registered in other states. They will at most be allowed to spend one night and that’s it. Am told Vienna too is now using the “one offer and that’s it” policy when it comes to social housing. We agree it is important to make Ukrainians in Ukraine aware of this. I try to spread the word in several Telegram groups for Ukrainians in Austria. Very simply writing, in Russian: if you come to Austria and ask the state for housing, you will be given one option, and no one can say ahead of time if that will be in a village or city, if you will feed yourself and receive the full €260 or if you will be “fed” and receive only €40 per month. If you say no, you will be asked to leave the arrival center immediately. I am told from those working within the system that yes, housing is very tight, usually people in Grundversorgung have no choice or input when it comes to what they are assigned. You hear this often in Austria. I paraphrase, but it sounds something like “yes it is shit but that is how it has always been and that is how it is”.
5:32 PM I relay all this back to the volunteer in Graz. I explain the family really is on their own, not to expect a miracle from the authorities. There is no magic number to call and fix this. She thanks me for the info. I do not know what the family will do today.
8:03 PM a mom who received a grocery card from us months ago from me writes. The message is in Ukrainian. I put it through Google translate to make sure I get it all correctly. It is followed by three giant prayer emojis. “Tanechka, good evening, can I ask you for the addresses of the nursing homes where the conditions are normal, we would like to look for ourselves in order to leave Hotel du France, it is difficult for children here and there are no payments. Maybe you can tell me the addresses?”. I leave the mom a long voice message. I explain you cannot easily move from one social housing to another. If you show up at another dorm, staff there will explain they do not decide who gets to move in. It is all done centrally, via the Vienna city organization charged with social housing, and it is anyone’s guess how to convince a bureaucrat to help you switch or move. I advise talking with all the NGOs who are tasked with helping Vienna-registered Ukrainians, providing free consultations. They cannot assign new housing, but they can walk through the process of asking. I then realise I have not answered the woman’s question. I open up an Excel file from last Christmas (Secret Santa deliveries of chocolates), and paste her all the addresses known to me of “dorms” housing Ukrainians in Vienna. I warn her not to expect anything if she shows up on site. But now she can at least have the feeling that she did her research. It breaks my heart to think about those kids being “fed” for months on end. Grundversorgung as a concept was never meant to be a long-term solution (asylum seekers, unlike Ukrainians, eventually have a court case after which, if approved, they have a different legal status and right to all the social payments local Austrians are eligible for), and it was designed in the last decade to be a deterrent to immigration. And now Ukrainian moms and kids have been stuck inside this framework with no perspective for change. Plus those who can and would like to work risk losing their housing and these minimal payments (at best €260 pm per adult and €145 per child) if they do take a job. It’s a viscous circle.
9:59 PM a woman writes me from Ukraine who left in the summer and wants to know when her blue card (ID issued by Austria to Ukrainians with temporary protection) will be cut off. I explain I cannot answer that question, but if she wants to have a new one issued in March 2024, she better be back by then, registered at an address in Austria. Her payments were cut off when she left, she de-registered, her bank account is at 0 balance. She claims her kids still have a place in school. I explain, rather bluntly, that is surely not the case — if you left, you left. School attendance is mandatory in Austria, and Ukrainians have no exemption for taking care of “family stuff” in Ukraine. I think to myself, some people still seem to float between both countries, unable to decide where to settle. Which, of course, is somewhat understandable given everything they have been through. But mentally, I see those who really live in the here and now have a much easier time of it.
I plug in my phone to the charger and promise not to look at it again until morning. During the day, I also answered several Ukrainians who wrote me asking for grocery cards that I am no longer building a waiting list, I am out of cards, and raising donations is so hard now. I do invite them to join my Telegram group, explaining we share useful info there and try and answer each other’s questions. That is at least something. This new normal will take me a bit of getting used to, as I always have this sense of accomplishment every time I drop envelopes filled with supermarket gift cards in the yellow mailbox on their way to addresses across Austria. The €50 of self-selected groceries does not fix any of the problems described above, but it was an indication that someone out there cares. We see and hear you. But it is not sustainable to run a program so reliant on a few donors. So I take a break now. I try to help with information, and advice. Cards for Ukraine will keep sending out as many cards as we have funding for, on a first come first serve basis, as we have since May 2022. But I cannot in good faith direct people now to the waiting list there. It is simply too long.
I try to share these stories publicly so that voters and taxpayers here have a better idea of what refugees go through, in this case those from Ukraine, when they seek refuge in Austria. I do not believe that not talking about issues publicly is a long-term solution. The current approach has not resulted in any major legislative victories, either. Yes, Ukrainians have free access to the labor market, but when so many risk losing immediately the social housing and minimal financial aid that keeps them afloat, it is no wonder the official employment numbers are still low. A grace period is needed, an opportunity to save up for a deposit on an apartment (in Austria 3 months rent is a typical deposit, unfortunately), an opportunity to pay a low rent in social housing for a period of time. If legislators really wanted to get refugees into work, they would blow up Grundversorgung and create something else. Instead, what I hear so often is quiet acknowledgement from those within the system that it is terrible, yet no one puts themselves out there to actually reform or do away with it. So therefore you have to come to the logical conclusion that the current system must suit the majority of legislators and voters, and perhaps that really is the case. Perhaps the real message is do not come here if you cannot afford an independent life here. But yes, officially, we are “open”.
I have told Ukrainians since day one, those who asked me at the train station, that I honestly recommend other countries. I continue to tell every Ukrainian or volunteer who asks that Austria is good for two scenarios: 1) you have the means to rent your own housing and will have good job prospects here and/or can support yourself financially or 2) you have a serious illness for which you receive medical care better here than what would be available in Ukraine right now. For the vast majority of others, elderly, moms with young kids, life here is very challenging if you operate within the framework of the rules no one wants to publish. This of course leads to illegal work and I imagine everyone knows this. This suits local small businesses too who can take advantage and pay very little or not at all. The “lucky” Ukrainians are those who arrived first. Some of them received social apartments, good dorm assignments, they got the first school places, they had first mover advantage in a system which quickly became overwhelmed. Others continue to live for months on end in “hotels” where they are “fed” and still receive €40 per month and that’s it. They write me out of desperation, and I give them not great answers, but I tell them what I know. It is all one person can do.
I am fully aware of my role here as something unusual. I am not Austrian. I cannot vote. I only have the power of using my voice in English to share what I am hearing in Ukrainian and Russian from people who otherwise would not be heard. So I will continue to do that. Frankly, the political people should do their thing, and they will anyway — refugees will be the last on a long list of hot topics as elections approach next year. I would tell the center and the left the election is already lost if they are going to avoid voicing topics for fear of inciting the right. As if the right ever worried about incensing anyone. Quite the opposite, they thrive in such divisive conditions.
I said in response to why I tweet that it has been my observation that Austria often only changes when forced into change from outside pressure, i.e. pressure from beyond this alpine land’s borders. Things often happen here, much like teens without a parent at home, and then suddenly everyone acts surprised when an adult shows up in the form of international press and asks what the hell is going on. Having said that, the voices may be quieter now with so many problems on so many fronts at the moment, and the western world increasingly paralysed and unable to react in any kind of meaningful way in real time to the moves of power-hungry autocrats seizing a moment of opportunity. To think those same things cannot happen within the EU itself would be incredibly naive.
Time will tell. I will continue to offer what advice and information I can to the Ukrainians I am in contact with, and to share with you those stories I think are of importance from those who do not have a public platform.
Thank you for reading and for your ongoing support.