Invisible little things
Invisible little things
This late August I am thinking about all of those who still haven't managed to land on their feet, unseen and unnoticed by the rest of us.
Nearly two and a half years into our little project which was never supposed to be long-term, I have nothing new to report. We continue to receive requests for help every day from Ukrainians who now find themselves living in Austria. Every day, I send a text saying simply “sorry, I don’t have any cards right now”. Sometimes they are considerate and thank me anyway. Sometimes they are in denial, and tell me they will wait. Other times, they get upset, like a lady who wrote me yesterday incensed that another Ukrainian had shared a grocery photo featuring fish because surely that person was not really in dire need and did not know how to stretch €50. This pissed me off. I left her a voice mail saying it is not our job nor place to filter “need” and tell people asking for help what to put in their grocery carts. That, is on them.
Mario recently sent out another 110 Hofer cards thanks to your collective generosity — more than €5000 in direct grocery aid. Which is fantastic and we are so grateful but it is also only a tiny drop in a gigantic bucket, the bottom of which none of us can see. The folks who received these cards waited months for them after signing up to ask for help on the same website we use to collect donations: Cards for Ukraine.
The financial problems which exist for the elderly, handicapped, those who cannot work or have failed to find work have not disappeared simply because they are no longer headline news and no one talks about them. To be honest, I am really sick of talking about them. I am sick of hearing about them. Yes, I am aware that it is cruel and unusual punishment to “feed” people rations less than what a normal person would need to survive and them expect them to take care of all their needs on “pocket money” of €40 per month. And yet some Ukrainians in organised living where they are fed are still living like this. Somehow.
In my Telegram group chat this morning, there was a big discussion about the Austrian authorities (via the NGOs who represent the government) deducting Ukrainian pension payments from the aid money they hand out here. This too is not news. Some are incensed, others accept it as an unfortunate reality. While Austrians are discussing tabloid headlines about a Syrian family with four kids which reportedly receives nearly €5,000 in aid from the government every month while not going to work, there are Ukrainians trying desperately to survive on a tiny fraction of that, all because their legal status is “temporary” (thanks, EU) and that of Syrians is permanent residency once their asylum claim is approved. Legalise, but in practice it makes an enormous difference.
Personally, I don’t think any government should be paying anyone not to work. I also do not think one can survive on €40 per month. It frustrates me that even the little which is supposed to be distributed is not done properly nor on time, and what happens in the interim is people like me receive angry text messages, while government bureaucrats are seemingly on paid holiday from their jobs distributing taxpayer funds. As I said, it is a topic we are all tired of talking about.
For a deep dive on immigration in Austria and how we got here, I would recommend listening to this podcast (in German) which addresses many of the key issues on an academic level from leading local experts, while of course not addressing how so much of this works in practice: illegal work, cheating the system, playing the game, etc etc. The Ukrainians tell me all the tricks they learned along the way from the others in Geman classes with them. If you want to know how things work in practice, you have to speak with the immigrants themselves.
One excerpt from my Telegram group chat this weekend. This is nothing unusual, in fact it is the “new normal” for “debts” to be calculated and issued to those Ukrainians who were deemed to have “income” (tiny old age pension back home).
“I came with my husband / I was not yet 60, and my husband is 60 years old / under temporary protection in Salzburg on June 30, 2023. At first we lived in a hotel, we were paid 40 euros pocket money and 50 euros for clothes every four months. In September, we were accommodated in social housing, we have a separate room, we also started paying 49 euros for food from the money, we like everything. And we are sincerely grateful to Austria. Upon arrival, I immediately told and showed that at the moment we do not have our own funds, but I receive a Ukrainian disability pension. Every month I submitted screenshots - confirmation of receiving a pension. She did not collect a pension, it was spent monthly. Since December 2023, I have been denied pocket money of 40 euros and 50 euros for clothes. I did not receive any letters. The man received this money. 13. On 08.24, I received a letter from the Land of Salzburg stating that I must return the pension I received for the period from July 2023 to July 2024 for the benefit of the poor because, given my income, I did not have the right to receive assistance from the Land of Salzburg. Caritas, which I contacted, wrote a letter to the Land of Salzburg about the possibility of dividing the debt monthly - the amount came to EUR 1,500. I'm sorry, I write a lot and my thoughts get confused. But if that was the end of it. No, Caritas warned me that this debt is accrued until July 2024, and in the future it will also be billed. Only, of course, the letters will not come monthly, but once every few months, and the further debt will not be divided into parts, the entire amount will have to be returned at once. Therefore, I am now in a closed circle - I receive a pension, then I have debts. And if there was even an opportunity to refuse the Ukrainian pension, how would I repay the accrued debt? Maybe someone has already got into such a situation, can tell you something. And I think to myself - my God, how many Ukrainian disabled people, or just pensioners, could still be in my situation?! Thank you for your understanding.”
Can you imagine? The same Austrian state hosting the world-renowned summer opera festival selling tickets at hundreds of Euros a pop is chasing down elderly Ukrainians and issuing them debts the size they will never repay. Why?
In my opinion, the answer is very simple.
To make sure that no one else comes.
It sends a very clear message back to all the other millions waiting out the end of the war in Ukraine. Don’t even think about coming to Europe if you don’t have the financial means to survive here.
Earlier today, another woman writes:
“I ask for help and advice. We are living in social housing in Upper Austria. In the town of Dimbach. We arrived on 7 August 2024. We were told there would be a two-room apartment for us. We arrived, there were four rooms, and they said they will move others in with us. In the end, they said we must move into one room because a big family will arrive with two big dogs. We are a family of three and have a small dog. We were promised to be given €7 per day for each adult and €5 per day for the child. But we never received any money and still have not. We don’t have anything to eat. We are looking for jobs, but our blue cards have not arrived yet. We went to the arrival camp, and they told us that we could sleep there for one night, but only until tomorrow. We have nowhere to go and we don’t have any money. We borrowed money to come here. We wrote to Caritas. There is no reply. I ask you to help, it is our cry for help.”
And then I, on a Sunday in August, nursing tonsillitis and other end-of-summer stresses, want to throw my phone against the wall because HOW IS THIS STILL HAPPENING?! How are people still arriving and still being left without any money to buy basic food products. I shared an email address of the federal government where I hope someone may read the email on Monday, but that isn’t a real help.
The system is broken and no one in over a decade has thought to fix it. People really in dire need of small amounts of money do not receive them, and those who are objectively not in need of larger handouts over extended periods of time continue to receive them. Make it make sense.
In short, the problems are not new. They are still here. There is no end in sight to the war and more families are still arriving. Austria is keeping its arrival center capacity very tight (200 beds in Vienna plus a handful in other cities). There is no new social housing. The message is loud and clear: do not come if you cannot afford it. Otherwise, good luck. You will need it.
Others have settled in, found jobs, excelled at German classes, and are already planning how to apply for a permanent residency status now offered to Ukrainians who meet the criteria in terms of salary, etc. But they are a select few.
I have not been able to consume the news in any depth lately. My brain just switches off. The Ukrainians I spoke with say that the incursion into Russian territory in the Kursk region has the goal of later trading that territory for Ukrainian land now occupied by Russia. One person with family in Russian-occupied Donetsk said the Russians are pulling some troops out and sending them back to defend Kursk. No one dares talk about fall or winter. No one knows. The reports from Russia do not convey a sense of panic — concern, yes, but Russia is an enormous country, and just like the average Muscovite didn’t give a damn about life in some village in Kursk region a few months ago, I doubt he cares any more now.
Ordinary people on both sides talk about hoping for peace. When it will come will not be in the hands of ordinary people.
For now, for today, I would just like to highlight that unfortunately there are still many amongst us who are struggling to buy basic groceries. Those who can work, should, but for many, it is not so simple. European countries took in pensioners, handicapped, and sick Ukrainians without providing them with enough funds to survive here. Those who have family to help them financially are doing ok. The others, not really. We cannot and should not play God. We send grocery cards of €50 as a one-off to those who ask us for help. It is not a solution, only a patch. We rely entirely on private donors and are a zero-overhead volunteer organization. It’s just me and Mario. Mario takes care of our admin and I reply to Ukrainians. When I have some cards (Mario sends me those which are returned to us by the post office when addresses changed, etc.), I distribute them directly to those who write me directly. It is not a perfect science, but we try. We are a small bandaid on a very big wound.
Thank you in advance.