Housing (the struggle is real)
One family's story of how hard (or rather, nearly impossible) it is for refugees to provide for themselves in private housing as the state sometimes makes even miserly subsidies difficult to access.
I had fully intended to write on another, far more “big picture” topic today, but as so often happens, life takes over. A lot of housing drama today. My eyes have been even further opened to problems I knew existed but I was not aware to the extent of the struggle until I received this new information today. Therefore, I am sharing it, as I believe it to be at a minimum in taxpayers’ interest to know how their funds are (or rather aren’t) being used to support refugees who have come to Austria seeking safety from war, an actual roof over their heads, and as they say, a “clear sky” above. Ditto for voters to know how things work in practice.
These past few weeks I have been able to deliver several Hofer cards to the “arrivals center”, a former university building in Vienna now used to house Ukrainians who have just arrived in Austria with nowhere to go and/or find themselves newly homeless in Austria. The original intention was that residents would stay for a maximum of three days, and then would be send to organised housing across Austria. My gut feeling / impression from talking to dozens of residents is that process has slowed if not stopped entirely. I know one mother and son who were assigned a (permanent) hotel room in Vienna, but everyone else seems to be still waiting. Housing assignments also seem to have conveniently stopped or at least slowed to an absolute trickle ahead of the Lower Austrian election last Sunday. But now the election is past (25% voted for far right open racist party just FYI), and it doesn’t feel like things are moving forward on the housing front. These are for free rooms in group homes provided by the Austrian state.
According to official statistics, however, the majority of Ukrainians in Austria are living in private accommodation. They may I apply to receive rental support, €165 for one person, or €330 per family (irregardless of family size), per month. I also assumed this was for everyone, but I have learned it is not that simple. Ukrainians can only ask for rental support if their rent is super low to begin with. If they show a contract deemed to be “too expensive”, they don’t qualify for any rent subsidy. So of course a lot of people asked their landlords to please be so kind and not write the actual rental amount but rather €330, but we all know, Austria is a place of rules and regulations, and certainly not every landlord is gong to go along with that.
So what I have learned today is two-fold: it is nearly impossible to find affordable housing, and even when you do, it is in some areas of Austria extremely challenging to access the rental subsidy promised to refugees. In short, the plan sounds good on paper (if on the cheap side compared to market prices today), and in reality, it’s nearly impossible, which explains why so many people are still waiting for any kind of social housing, even if that means they cannot work full-time legally (yet another caveat when you ask for free housing is you cannot work a real official full time job).
So, first this happened:
Thank you for all the RTs, but unfortunately I don’t have any leads for Vassily yet. He and is mom are so incredibly resourceful I just hope a little good luck will come their way, too.
Second, I received a long voice mail, several in fact, from Olena in Tirol.
“Good day, Tanya. For your sake I will speak in Russian. I don’t use the language anymore, because of aggression…”
Olena came with her husband and two children aged 12 and 14 from Sumy oblast, where fighting was very intense. Olena has been battling the authorities in Tirol for months and sounds like she is on the verge of giving up. The family of four rent an apartment in a small town (“two shops and a train station”) in Tirol for €990 (€800 rent plus €180 utilities) per month. It was impossible to find anything cheaper. Because of the rent cost, TSD (the state in this case) does not want to pay the family the €330 per month subsidy towards rent, arguing they are obviously wealthy enough if they can afford such an “expensive” apartment. But Olena says, there are no other apartments. It is nearly impossible to find anything close to affordable housing in Tirol. The town has a train station but no gymnasium. They still have to travel to other towns for their needs, including for German classes (Olena is at B2/C1 German as she once lived n Germany for a year).
For five months, the family received no financial help from the Austrian authorities. When you rent an apartment, you have to pay for the kitchen sometimes (yes, really) and a deposit, usually three months. It is an insurmountable amount for most refuges. Olena knows a Ukrainian woman who rented a room for €400 per month, and yet the authorities in Tirol do not want to reimburse her the €165 per month subsidy for refugees, arguing her room is “too expensive”. But there is nothing else, Olena explains.
The math does not add up. Her husband worked and then he lost his job (broken arm). Olena is now job searching via AMS. She was told even with her language skills she could only earn €1600 per month before tax, but as she has two kids she would probably only get hired part-time, so that would be €900, and then after tax, €600. Olena says “how can I feed two kids and myself and pay for everything on €600 per month?!”. She talks about her husband leaving. I understand this to be so they could ask for a free room at the Hotel Europa, an infamous refugee hotel in Innsbruck where there have been no small number of scandals over the past year. “One family got thrown out right onto the street,” she says. When you live there you are “fed” but only receive €40 per person per month pocket money. She doesn’t know what to do. If she moves into the hotel there will be no work, no school, TSD warned her. Olena says TSD told her very clearly to stay where she is, that if she moves, she will lose what she has.
She explains there are apartments for €700: yes, and they have 18 square meters. The authorities are telling Ukrainians to find apartments for €600 per month for a family without a car which do not exist. “Do they really not know how much everything costs?” Olena asks. Every place you find wants a deposit. Sometimes you have to pay for furniture, too. Sometimes they refuse to rent to four people, arguing the space is too small. So Olena’s husband will leave. That is their plan, as you cannot find an apartment for the amount TSD wants written in the contract to reimburse the subsidy.
Sometimes you find an apartment, and the landlord doesn’t want to rent to you because you are foreigners. Or what is available is even more rural. Or it’s too big. Or the deposit is too much. Or you cannot afford the train ticket to get anywhere.
Olena’s 14 year old has been attending middle school for three months. He doesn’t understand German well yet, of course. She worries about his future education. The class is mixed age; there are even 17 year olds sitting in it. She cannot afford tutors. Gymnasium will not take the child because he does not know German yet. Olena would like her kids to do extra math online with their teachers from Ukraine, so not to fall further behind. But where the teachers are, in Sumy oblast, there are rolling blackouts: four hours no electricity, two hours with. After 6pm no internet, nothing. You fall into total depression. Olena’s ageing parents back home are really suffering.
Olena tells me of moms of teens planning on going back to Ukraine now because the kids aren’t learning anything here and they fear them having no education.
Maybe she will go to Germany. In Germany, you get €700 per month for a family, or maybe even more, but you have to live in a camp, as there is also no housing left, and she doesn’t know if she can do it.
“Do they really not know how much things cost?” Olena asks me.
“They know.” I reply, quietly.
I am pretty shocked because I knew housing was expensive and hard to find in Tirol, but I did not know how hard it was to even ask for the subsidy of €330/€165. I have the impression from my Telegram chat that this is not a huge issue in Vienna. Of course I am also in touch with a lot of people who are living in social housing (free) and they don’t have this issue.
It certainly feels like despite the flag waving and #standwithUkraine the reality is EU countries are all cutting back on what they offer to refugees on the ground, and Austria certainly seems to be informally trying to close up shop even if the doors are officially still open.
This morning I had to find train money for a mom and her toddler who need to get to their social housing in Steiermark. We did it, over Twitter, which is great, but what is not great is that WE had to do it in the first place. That whole thread here.
My point? Be wary of what you read in the media or on NGO websites about how things are supposed to work for refugees, because when you start asking questions, you learn the reality is unfortunately often very different.