Layers of a rotten onion (Day 75)
I have no time. I feel like I'm doing a dozen jobs at once. This will be brief and to the point.
Yesterday, I met Daniil. He is 9. He lives with his aunt and grandmother (dad is in Ukraine, mom is out of the picture) in a group home in the 11th district of Vienna housing over 400 Ukrainian refugees. He brought me this painting when he came with his aunt to pick up a Hofer grocery gift card (€50) and two McDonalds cards (€20). Daniil was already in hospital in Vienna with food poisoning, that’s how bad the food is in this group home.
I’ve been tweeting about it, sharing photos of the meals which I have been receiving from another resident.
Last night:
Lunch today:
Dinner tonight:
Do you feel sick to your stomach yet?
This brave woman is ready to talk to journalists, is gathering other families in need so that I may get more of your Hofer grocery cards into the building. The residents do not, to my knowledge, have access to a kitchen, but they buy things like fruit and vegetables and are somehow trying to supplement what is inedible slop. Because the residents are technically “fed” in the eyes of the state, they also do not receive the social payments they would be entitled to if they lived independently.
In other words, when I first started this grocery shopping experiment, I thought the problem was our prices and that you cannot feed a family on €215 per adult and €100 per child per month. Then I discovered that many families across all regions of Austria still have not received a single Euro from the Austrian government. Vienna is better, but not perfect, and in some regions it seems like a significant minority if not half have not yet been paid. Then I discovered (when Ukrainians all started writing me from the same address) there are dorms, group housing situations, where residents are not fed properly at all, and then also do not receive money because the state thinks they are being fed. Instead, someone else is getting that money. Who? I don’t know. Some corrupt middleman. I have no idea. I just want it all to stop. A disgrace in the middle of the EU in what prides itself on being a rich, generous country.
Therefore, my elevator pitch for tomorrow’s government meeting:
Money money money. Give Ukrainians in Austria enough money to live a modest life and not go hungry, real unbureaucratic access to the labor market, housing, and free up the kitchens and kick out all the corrupt organizations and people making money off of the “refugee” business since 2015 (I imagine this isn’t a new business model). Given Ukrainian women in Austria their dignity back.
I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard in my life. I don’t even have time to write about it. I can only say 60 cards went out today, and I’ve got another 40 to process for tomorrow. I am talking to journalists, trying to answer questions, sending some funds to other parts of the country in specific need of help (grocery card money to Upper Austria, baby food money to a volunteer here in Vienna). I have new ideas in my head but want to get through my long list of families asking for Hofer cards (the list gets longer faster than I send out cards!), really focusing on those in the most dire situations, although frankly, people living in rural areas could also be going hungry and we might not hear about it.
It’s all completely overwhelming and the only people I connect with at the moment are the hundreds of Ukrainian women in my inboxes and fellow volunteers who understand what a disaster and ticking time bomb this all is. A long thread from yesterday on all the issues at the train station and then some. Here a web version for those of you not on Twitter.
TLDR? We have no more charity-paid hotel rooms at the train station. The charity doesn’t have any. I am not sure why and I don’t know exactly where people are sent now. Either to another shelter (Messe is closing and not accepting new people) or on cots in a room tucked behind platforms 6 and 7. IMHO, a total embarrassment for a city as rich as Vienna. Trains are full, many people simply cannot get same day tickets. There are issues with hot food on sight. I heard today of some abuse by Ukrainians of the charity cafeteria ticket system, so now they are apparently even taking passport details down. IMHO again you could bypass the whole drama by just feeding everyone but apparently the capacity doesn't exist. Which gets me back to the point I feel like I have been making forever: give Ukrainians money directly, vouchers to use at restaurants and hotels on site, and expand your capacity to meet the needs of the crisis we are all facing. It is not going away anytime soon.
Please remind me in a few weeks to tell you a very special May 9 story. One I will never forget. But not today. Remind me, please. It’s a special one.
Thank you for reading. There is some jerk on Twitter pretending to be me, we reported it but Twitter doesn’t care. My handle was always and will always be TANJAMAIER17 anything else is fake and please don’t send them any money! This is why I prefer to DM with everyone before they donate a Hofer card and/or send funds.
Tomorrow I will meet a local journalist and translate, also meet some more Ukrainian women in precarious situations in Vienna. I hope that by screaming about it, people and politicians will not be able to look away. I fear I could be wrong and they may do just that anyway.
I have such issue with the food being served--as you reported. some wet mush--looks like pasta, rice and maybe some barley--but all not really diversified in nutrition--especially for young children. Processed bread and what appears to be chicken-- although it looks like it was boiled or even a canned product. Just not at all welcoming. The people making the accommodations happen for the refugees are to be applauded for trying to house so many. However, this is the only grace I can give here. Seems like the people there could cook fro themselves. So, why not a kitchen with shifts of workers? So many possible jobs to be had in a food-service operation of this scale--and ones which would bring self and pride back into their lives in a way which communicates hope.