The never-ending story
A public appeal by dozens of Ukrainian residents in a dorm in Vienna's 11th district which has been a very challenging living & eating situation for nearly as long as the war in Ukraine has raged.
For those of you who have been following me for a while, you know all about this place. This address at the edge of Vienna’s 11th district has been problematic from the start. In May, they tried to kick everyone out. In summer, they refused to give anyone new arriving registration papers. For nine months, refugees lived there being “fed” but without documentation (Meldezettel) and no social payments. An October 2022 press article here. Residents of this dorm were outside the system due to technicalities which are on the city, not me, to explain.
In December, a decision was apparently finally made to give residents Meldezettel (residence permits) and the €40 per month per person pocket money which is paid under Grundversorgung in organized housing where residents are “fed”. I have continue to send grocery cards to this address, but by mail (which thankfully has worked so far), Christmas chocolates were delivered to the children by another group of volunteers, a third group of volunteers helped deliver shampoo and other non-food necessities, and I really truly naively thought things had gotten better.
Until the rumblings started. They got louder, and louder, and then I could not avoid them anymore. I consulted with several other volunteers aware of the situation. I needed to hear about it from several sources within the dorm. I wanted to make sure I understood the full story. I don’t want to get into all those details, but to make a long story very short: several residents of this dorm got together and wrote a formal appeal to six organizations in Vienna to ask for help on behalf of the residents of Haus Haidihof. After word got out within the dorm, I am told some of the initiators and signatories were verbally threatened by the representatives of the dorm administration.
This was published anonymously in a large, public Telegram chat yesterday, but I do know the author and have spoken directly with that person.
“Yesterday, two handicapped people, one who is nearly blind, the other in a wheelchair, went and gathered signatures to send the letter to six different organizations, about the bad food here and a lot more. So, today, two administration staff came to the blind man with a translator, took him by the arm, and took him off somewhere. They wanted to know who wrote the letter and took him to a room to question him…Everyone is now afraid. It turns out one of the residents who is ok with everything here took a photo of the letter and showed it to the administration. I cannot get my head around what is happening, what kind of a regime is this? People are getting sick from the food, especially the old poeple. You cannot feed it to kids at all. Yes we are all scared. Sitting here like mice. And if residents don’t understand where they are, and they complain too loud, they might call the police, it has happened before. So we have no rights. Journalists came here in the fall. The people who were brave and gave interviews don’t live here anymore. Apparently some of them were given two hours to leave.”
I received over the past few days several worried and confused messages. This morning, I received the full text of the appeal letter from the authors, which I have translated into English below. I promised to help them edit and print copies of their letter in German. They have given me permission to share it in English.
“The group letter was written during a meeting of residents in January. It was edited and printed in Ukrainian and Russian. Then we went from floor to floor. Residents had the opportunity to read the edited version, and choose to sign. So far we have been on six floors, two floors still to do. Many are afraid to sign, afraid they will be kicked out if they do, others don’t believe it will make any difference, because previous efforts never resulted in any positive changes. Now there are 49 signatures. The dorm administration wanted to see the names of the signatories and their room numbers but we did not give it to them. Tanja, can you help us edit the German version? We did it with Google translate. And also if you could help print copies and the two photos (breakfast and dinner) so that we could then deliver our letter to the addresses.”
The residents would like to deliver their letter in German to these six organizations below. They came up with the list and did not consult me. I would have added BBU, but they probably do not know about BBU. Caritas plays no role in this dorm, but they do not know that, and perhaps correctly assume it is a key organization in Vienna, but it is not in any way responsible for this address.
1. Wien Rathaus Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz 1, 1010 Wien
2. Austria Center Vienna (ACV) Bruno-Kreisky-Platz 1220 Wien
3. Caritas der Erzdiözese Wien. Albrechtskreithgasse 19-21. 1160 Wien .
4. Botschaft der Ukraine Naaffgasse 23, 1180 Wien, Währing
5. OIF Integrationszentrum Wien Landstraßer Hauptstraße 26 1030 Wien
6. Samariter-Bund Wien Schonbrunner Strase 222-228/Steige1/6.Stock
And now, the group letter. Signed by dozens of residents (I have seen photos of the handwritten names, signatures, and room numbers. I am not including them here to protect their privacy). Translated from Russian by yours truly:
“Temporarily displaced persons from Ukraine living currently at HAIDEHOF are writing to you. It will soon be a year that the war has raged in Ukraine, which has upset so many and we have been forced to live in Austria and feel this ourselves. We were given blue cards, which put us on equal footing with Austrians, and according to the “EU Declaration on Temporary Protection” dated 11 March 2022, we received a status which gives us all legal rights under the Law and obligations for the execution of all without exception and according to which in Austria everything is governed. But for some reason, we are cut off from many legal rights, they are reduced or just boldly violated, and laws and their implementation are ignored, and if we ask any kind of questions, in response we hear reproaches, such as ‘you should all be grateful and say thankful that you are not in Ukraine now, where there is war, no electricity, no heat, no work. And you here are getting fat and still complaining’.
Thank you, that we have been housed in good living conditions, where there is always electricity, hot water and heat, but there are several urgent questions which we need your help please to address.
We would like to begin by drawing your attention to how we are fed. “Food” if it can be called that! It was poorly organized from the start. And now it is getting worse with each day that passes. The assortment of pre-packaged items has grown significantly worse over the past month. If before there were bottles with sparkling water with syrup at lunch, now we only see the staff with those bottles. Corn flakes, meat spread, chocolate spread have all disappeared from breakfast. Often there is no cocoa or cappuccino. Often instead of honey there is only jam. So basically our breakfast is 15 grams of butter, jam and cheese!!! For dinner they often instead of a yogurt give us a chemical sweet pudding, often there is no fruit, or no pre-packaged items. In fact, all the food, except for lunch, is pre-packaged and the same every day. Lunch is only a main course. Three days it is pasta, on the fourth day rice. With some kind of sauce. We haven’t seen a piece of meat in a long time. There was never any first course. Our diet is completely void of products everyone needs including eggs, tvorog (topfen), porridge, meat, chicken, fish, vegetables. Consuming such “food”, healthy people developed stomach aches, acid reflux, and unhealthy people (85% of residents here are sick and old) found all their health problems grew worse. This kind of food causes real problems for people.
And yet at the beginning (early December 2022), at the meeting, which the administration had with us, taking us under their wings, they promised to fix the problem with food and diet. There is also some kind of vegetarian option, which is offered at lunch, but if it is considered to be healthy, it is definitely not!
The money that was provided in the declaration — we do not see it nor do we decide how to spend it. But five people receive salaries here, they give out bags with single use plates. And then they just hang out in between meal times, that is how their work day looks like. Why do they need five people if one person could do that, well maybe two. We are prepared to do that work ourselves for free and make a schedule if it would mean more money left over for food.
That was about food. Now about everything else which is available at Haidehof but we do not have access to.
1. There is a toilet near the cafeteria (and there is not need during the covid pandemic to explain why a toilet is necessary), but it is always locked! If it needs to be repaired, then let’s fix it. We have men here among the residents who are happy to make the repairs. This was also brought up at the December public meeting but was never addressed.
2. On the first floor, in the hall, there is an activity room, with sofas, chairs, books, maybe even a TV, but we cannot access this room, because supposedly some things left behind from people who left are locked in there. But then three, four, sometimes five people sit on single chairs in the hall, because that is where the WI-FI works. What does this result in? You ate — ok go back to your rooms. That is easier for the staff, but we really need social interaction, and if we could use that room it would allow us to have more pleasant evenings, and it would not even cost anything. Only the things would have to be moved to one of the many storage areas.
3. The same thing applies to the so-called kids room. It is always locked and doesn’t have anything in it. They could have asked volunteers to help fill the room with what the kids need to play. Now kids play in the halls, run along the corridors, and while we are eating they play on the stage in the cafeteria, they are loud and wild, they broke things. Yes here you would have to organise and staff the room. But we could think how to make a schedule of volunteers, whether moms or managers. Most important is a desire to do it.
4. There are many free rooms in the building, but there is no room for sports which the handicapped really need. Again, the staff have no interest in pursuing this. The residents have asked about this, offered to help. And again they were turned down, saying the exercise bikes are broken and there is no one to fix them.
5. We are also forbidden from using the interior outdoor green courtyard, which has little paths and benches. Why?
6. We are also totally limited in our internal social life (everyone should go to their rooms). And external, too. They gave us one day to see friends within three hours and not more than two people. It feels like a prison with daily roll call. Why do they only let us go to Ukraine for three days, when by law we are allowed to leave for 21 days? Why should the internal rules be different than the Law itself which should be enforced for all equally?
7. There is a total lack of information about what we can do (for example few know that on Thursdays social workers come here and you can make an appointment with them). There is not specific information about transportation expenses and how to get them reimbursed (like if you go to the doctor). Not everyone received €200 in December and no one gives us any answers. There are so many questions, a wide variety, because there is so little information.
8. In the past, the rooms were cleaned once a day. Now it is once a week. No one provided us with cleaning products. If they at least could give them to the floor, we could then clean for ourselves in our rooms during the week. Of course one has to think about how to organise this, but each floor does have a cupboard with cleaning supplies.
9. What about personal hygiene products? In the dorm on Winkelweg 6, which was also run by your organization, they gave bags to everyone each month with the same set of products, everything you need. In the Hotel du France, which you also run, residents receive €10 per month vouchers for BIPA to buy what they need. Here we have to ask the manager at the reception, not what you need, but what they have at all. There is only a very limited assortment, that is what the manager tells us. Please help us get one of the two systems listed above. Laundry. There are only two washing machines in the whole building. It is only possible to sign up if you sleep in the hall so you can sign up when they open the sign ups at 7am. And they do not let anyone do laundry on Saturday or Sunday. Why not at least let us wash on Saturday? Then more people could wash their things.
10. German language courses. We were promised they would be organized. Lists were put together, and now we were told that we should look for classes ourselves, on our own. Why? After all, there are many of us here who would like to learn German and it would be easier if a teacher would come here to us, especially since there are so many handicapped residents and elderly people. Please help us to organize this.
11. We ask to organize regular (at least once or twice a week) consultations with lawyers and psychologists. So that we could understand those questions we have which our managers cannot provide us with answers to. A very obvious example is the agreement which the managers of the dorm verbally pushed us to sign (with threats that if we didn’t we might be kicked out).
We hope that our requests and suggestions will not lead to repercussions against the signatories. A social worker guaranteed to us that this would not be the case. We really hope for your understanding, support, and help.
We ask you kindly to write us back to Wien 1110 Haus HAIDEHOF Rzehakgasse 4 Room number (removed).”
The person who sent me the letter also asked me to share these two photos of breakfast and dinner.
I am very concerned that by hitting publish on this it may come back to make the lives of residents in this dorm even worse. I do fear revenge with no cameras running. Which is crazy.
But I also know how hard these group of brave Ukrainians have worked to do this correctly (entirely on their own, I only heard about all of this less than 48 hour ago), how strongly they feel about their own rights here, and I know what a challenge for lack of a better word this particular dorm has been from the very start. These residents have bravely taken a public stance and asked for help. I hope local journalists will read this and start to draw light on a situation which unfortunately has not really improved. In fact, if you imagine living like this for months and months, it sounds even worse than last summer when there was at least a glimmer of hope that one day it will be “fixed” once the right people hear about it.
Personally, I imagine the only way to really fix things is to change the administration and/or staff completely and allocate a special budget from the city to help improve living conditions. I have no idea if that is realistic. One can hope. Shoving problems under the carpet certainly has not worked so far.