Lift off! (Day 83)
The new website has been flooded with both requests for Hofer cards and donations form around the world. Demand still outstrips supply, but I am confident we will get there. An update from Wien HBF.
The new website is up and running.
We have been overwhelmed both by the generosity of donors from around the world, and the demand for grocery cards. While working the old-fashioned way, I hadn’t had the chance yet to promote the card project in Telegram groups in the west of Austria. We did this with the website, and sure enough, as soon as we did, Ukrainian families found us. I think it is very hard for most of us to imagine the impact of a €50 grocery gift card right now for thousands of Ukrainian women and kids living in Austria right now. Unfortunately, the current financial situation is indeed, that bad.
Whether on purpose or by default as a result of bureaucratic incompetence, slowness, poor design, or a combination of both, this Austrian government has left many Ukrainian refugees vulnerable across this small, wealthy nation. Food is the number one issue.
From many places, the message is roughly the same — we have a roof over our heads, thank you, everything is fine, we are grateful to be here, but please, we cannot eat the food they serve us, the children do not eat, and we do not receive any money to buy food ourselves.
Families living in housing where they are “fed 3x day” do not qualify for the tiny amount of state money (€215 per adult €100 per child) paid out to Ukrainians each month. At least in theory, in practice, many of those who do qualify because they live and cook independently still haven’t received a single Euro, also, all across Austria, some states better (Wien) and some worse (Upper Austria, Salzburg).
Mario has taken a lot of the work off of my hands now, although I am still working off my own pipeline of 100-200 families requesting grocery store gift cards. Aside from that, I am meeting the most vulnerable families I am aware of near Vienna in person. First, because I worry they may not receive their post in group homes, particularly if someone figures out what is inside the envelopes, and second, to check on them, and hear how they are doing in person.
Yesterday, I met a group of parents (including one single dad) from the small hotel in Lower Austria where the 52 Ukrainian residents are both unhappy with the food and have all been assigned unpaid jobs per a surely illegal contract which they were forced to sign when they moved in. I tweeted about that yesterday, please read the thread, it starts here (for non-Twitter users link to the full thread here)
This document really shocked me, and I’m not easily shocked. That the owners of this "hotel” now housing refugees saw nothing wrong with assigning unpaid labor to people who aren’t even entitled to receive their own daily allowance to buy food, and are left at the mercy of such “business” owners.
Today I saw more press attention is finally shedding light on some of the grimmer situations in Austria. Do read this account, also from Lower Austria:
There was also a very good radio report about the mess in Upper Austria, and by all accounts, a mess it is. Do read the thread, too:
Today I was back at the train station also, meeting with residents of the dorm with the (formerly!) bad food in the 11th district who were in a complete panic as of last night, thinking they would all have to move tomorrow. Now it turns out…something changed. Imagine that! Another thread here:
I really enjoyed speaking with Andrey (name changed) who only has one leg and would love a new “active” wheelchair. He came to get Hofer cards for another seven residents with limited mobility. He was a UN peacekeeper in 1995 in Sarajevo, where he burned both hands pulling a colleague out from a burning vehicle. His current wheelchair is narrow enough to make his way through Vienna on public transport, etc, but he has had it since 2014: the wheels are worn, and he made a lot of his own “repairs”. I tweeted about Andrey, and a kind reader already offered €300 towards the cost of a new vehicle. I promised to take Andrey “shopping” at a special shop once he has the money.
Next I met Olga (name changed), who is a mom from Zaporozhye and actively trying to help me reach the most vulnerable residents in the dorm to give them Hofer cards. Olga is so desperate for any kind of work I was “this” close to offering her a job myself but I know I cannot in my position and it is killing me. She does not want a hand out. She wants to earn her money. She told me she can cook, clean, iron, bake, do anything you ask of her. And I believe her. If she had a kitchen, she would sell pelmeni and dumplings. If she had clients, she would do their ironing and cleaning. But she doesn’t know where to find them.
Austrians and Ukrainians still exist in two separate social media worlds, for the most part. And legally, Olga cannot work. Legally, if Olga were to get a job paying more than €110 per month (yes, really), she would immediately, the way the law is written now, lose her free housing. Benefits she would not lose because she doesn’t receive them anyway. She lives in a building where they are considered “fed” three times a day. But she doesn’t eat there three meals a day. She does her own thing, she told me, tries to prepare in her room what she can. She cannot stand the lining up and fighting with others.
And then the train arrived from Budapest. Odesa. Odesa. Odesa. All going onto Germany. Germany by the way, from the sound of it, finally changed its train ticket policy. One free ticket, one time, and that’s it. Which is fair enough because so many Ukrainians have been travelling around Europe and it puts a strain on the whole network. But it will be a shock for those who now need to get “back” to Germany. I handed out families with kids McDonalds cards and helped them get tickets for later today.
Then I met Mira. She was so sweet and so tiny. They only got tickets for tomorrow. I did like in the old days and called a local hotel, €70 room for two plus dog, walked them over, swiped the credit card, one family very happy, one volunteer feeling useful to at least one family. Done. All in a matter of 15 minutes.
Which brings me to my last rant for today. What we are doing, what I am doing, what this project is doing — can be done by anyone. Anyone can buy a grocery gift card or pay for a hotel room. Even big charities could do this! If they wanted to. I really do not understand what is stopping anyone from doing this. The Austrian government, the charities who fundraise millions each year…I don’t see what makes Tanja & Mario special in this case. We just took the time to do something others were not doing yet, but nothing is stopping them from doing it too.
The law on asylum in Austria is totally fucked up. There is no other way to describe it. Ukrainians will physically not be able to survive on the money and conditions being offered. They will need money, housing and jobs. All of this must happen now.
Jobs — real unbureaucratic access to the labor market — is my number one concern after food security. This report on the radio yesterday made me crazy. Actually, husband heard it first, went crazy, called me… I have no time, I really don’t, but I am this close to starting a service by where Austrians send me 1 screenshot with a job description and email address, and I drop it into the respective local Telegram group for that Austrian state. It would take like 3 seconds per job. And it might change people’s lives for the better. For real. In both directions.
But back to earth, back to the task at hand. Mario, to whom I am forever indebted, and his team are working like crazy to mass buy and ship Hofer cards to the long list of Ukrainian families who applied for them. I continue to distribute cards too, working off my own backlog. Many women wait a week or more until I manage to open their messages over Messenger and Telegram (and now they found my WhatsApp and Instagram too!) and reply “thanks for your patience, your card is on its way”. I keep sharing the happy photos of groceries and words of thanks because it is so important to see the visual of how this project brings immediate tangible results.
So that’s it, in a nutshell. I’m off to the post office and Hofer, again. Thanks for your support and for your patience with my erratic publishing schedule. Meanwhile, Mario is on fire.
Just for fun, do check this out! I am obsessed.