This is what needs to happen (Day 131)
Austria has a new refugee response coordinator as of today. A cheat sheet of recommendations which needed to happen yesterday to ensure Ukrainians in Austria don't go hungry this summer.
I delivered 17 €50 grocery cards today thanks to you all, and gave an interview to local TV news in which I had to explain the very basics about why some Ukrainians are going hungry in Austria right now. Apparently, even some people inside the official response system don’t fully understand what is happening now.
I feel like I live in a parallel reality: while Austrians with actual jobs helping refugees sit in conference rooms discussing the reforms which need to take place to make things better, I am on the streets, handing out grocery cards, and listening firsthand to the concerns of desperate people. I repeat over and over: I am not an organisation, I am not a social worker, I cannot answer all of these questions correctly or fully, and then I give my best unofficial advice because on a human level that is the least you can do.
While delivering cards, I had to listen to many families’ sincere concerns, which are mounting by the week: we have no money, we don’t qualify for any payments from the state because we are “fed” in this dorm, where can we get a full time job?, how do you look for a job? why didn’t AMS ever call us bak? where can we find private housing we wouldn’t lose if we had a full time job?, why do you think our Canada visas are taking so long? will the hospital cancel my appointment with the surgeon if I don’t find a translator? do you know what this means?
Most of the desperate people came from the poorest parts of Ukraine, many are handicapped and or disabled, often they are elderly, and as a rule they do not speak any German nor English. They need social workers, and they need translators. I know one woman who was denied an operation when she showed up at a Vienna hospital without her own interpreter. I spoke today with a woman in a similar situation completely nervous her operation in July will be cancelled if she doesn’t find someone to help her.
Each of the large dorms and hotels in Austria housing hundreds of Ukrainians needs its own social worker and translator, if the social worker is not speaking Russian or Ukrainian. The volume of questions is increasing by the day, and they are ever more desperate. For those in private accommodation, we need a text hotline: a Telegram address Ukrainians can send written questions to and receive accurate answers to. If I was the new refugee coordinator, I would set this up ASAP and have my team work the questions.
We need a one-time payment of €500 to every Ukrainian in Austria to avoid children and elderly going hungry this summer. Now. Austria knew how to find fast money during corona times, it can do it again. The money Ukrainians arrived with has run out, when I say some have no money in their pockets I mean that in the most literal sense. Banned from full time work under the €110/month ceiling for those in Grundversorgung, which includes everyone in a free room provided by the state, this is a ticking humanitarian time bomb. I sense the government going on holiday, it cannot be the case that Tanja and Mario send out a few more Hofer cards and we all hope for the best. As I told the TV camera this afternoon: we are no substitute for a proper state response; we are at best one week’s worth of groceries, one time.
The limit on how much one can earn needs to be lifted immediately. Let those living in state accommodation pay a modest rent once they are earning a full-time wage, but do not prevent them from working. Lift entirely the €110/month limit on legal earnings while in Grundversorgung. If Ukrainians are happy to stay in their dorms and/or hotel rooms, then let them pay a nominal rent once they are working full-time. It should never be financially better off to sit at home and do nothing vs. go to work. At the moment, the way Grundversorgung is designed, there is a disincentive to go to work. This is bad for the Ukrainians, bad for integration, bad for the Austrian economy.
Increase substantially the size of the monthly social payment to Ukrainians in Grundversorgung. Germany pays €450/month, roughly the same as what an unemployed German receives. France pays €400/month.
Austria pays €215/month, and no one can even buy food at those prices for a month, let alone pay for anything else. I have no idea how to feed a child on €100/month, and neither will Ukrainian mothers. They have to shop in the same stores as us. Formula and diapers are no cheaper for them. Moms of babies cannot go to work. Many outside of Vienna complain they cannot work until their children turn three and a kindergarten space becomes available. You are always going to have elderly, moms of babies, people with special needs who cannot work full time and they have to be able to physically survive on the money being paid out by the state. I have heard the crap about avoiding “pull factors” and believe me, €450/month is not a pull-factor. It is just survival. When people get full-time jobs, don’t immediately pull away all the aid, don’t create a disincentive for working.
Those going to work each day should always be financially better off than those who stay home. Econ 101. Obviously. Remove the bureaucratic barriers to work. Remove the special permission each employer must ask AMS of before hiring a Ukrainian. Make it a fair playing field.
Increase access to language courses. I was told again today by a Ukrainian the German classes are “full” and he cannot sign up. I know others who fear signing up for courses offered by the state because if they miss X percentage of classes they have to pay back the entire cost of the course (over €1000), and as some of them are running around doing odd (illegal) jobs or have small kids, etc, it’s a risk they can’t take. The system is designed for maximum inflexibility, and I would argue, for failure. Open up as many courses this summer in whatever formats possible and don’t be so strict or you discourage Ukrainians from integrating…or is that the goal?
Make it easier to access summer camps, schools and kindergartens, but now I’ll stop. These are middle class topics.
I am worried about the old women I met last week from Kharkiv who lives in a dorm in Vienna where she can cook for herself and does receive social payments, and wakes up at 4am to stand in line once a month for a €10 voucher because it “buys two chickens”. I have to stretch those €215 to survive, she told me. Every little helps.
The unlucky ones eat what they are served at refugee dorms and former hotels across Austria without access to on-site kitchens, and do not receive any cash in hand — if they are lucky, €40 per month pocket money. If they are lucky. Those refugees are growing ever more desperate. They cannot seek legal work or they risk losing their housing. It is a vicious circle. I received these messages this afternoon from a woman in the dorm you will see reported on in the evening news this week, during which some people who get paid to do this kind of social work will likely say everything is rosy, and I tell the camera what the Ukrainians tell me. Who will people believe? Given Austria’s track record, probably the folks who speak native German with the logos on their shirts.
Last week I learned of two (!) different locations in Lower Austria where refugees have been housed near rats in courtyards. I have the addresses of several places across Austria where Ukrainians are “fed” and they write me desperately asking for more money to buy food.
I receive messages like this yesterday from Ukrainians who literally just arrived and don’t know how to buy food until the state payments occur.
It occurred to me this weekend that my iPhone at the moment might know more than anyone in Austria’s official structures about what is happening on the ground and that is a terrible, frightening thought. This is not just incompetency, this is wilful ignorance. This is choosing to look away. Out of sight, out of mind.
The stakeholders for sure each see their own area, they know where the problems are which their teams experience, the bottlenecks, the cracks in the system, the bad actors, the shortfalls, but perhaps because of intertwined financial flows, the big charities don’t really speak out as loud as they could or should about the crisis in front of us because they might fear losing their funding (I have no idea, I am just guessing). But the crisis is already here so I don’t really understand anyone biting their tongues any longer. If I was in charge, I would, in a perfect world:
Immediate €500 one time payment now to all Ukrainian refugees in Austria.
Remove all barriers to legal work (lift ridiculous €110 ceiling + no additional paperwork to employ).
Increase the state monthly payments significantly, but make working always more attractive financially than not working. I would not immediately remove all benefits when someone goes to work. Charge a minimal rent instead of taking away free housing.
End once and for all the murky system of institutions “feeding people” and let refugees feed themselves, cooking independently. Provide assisted living for the elderly and those with disabilities who cannot cook on their own. But for 99% of Ukrainians, they will be better off if they can make their own choices and manage their own money. Give people their dignity and their independence back.
Telegram text HOTLINE for all questions that would normally be answered by a social worker. In Ukrainian and Russian, obviously. You could even make it a public group so everyone could see the answers. Create a private address for private questions. Stop making people run from address to address across town one hour here one hour there on public transport where they are often told no one can help them anyway. Running from address to address worked (barely) in the 1980s when there was no internet. Every Ukrainian is online. I even get messages from folks older than my parents. A 90 year old asked for a grocery card this week on Telegram. Yes, really.
And if these things are all likely impossible to do within the existing system — don’t add layers on top of a rotten onion. Throw out the onion, go to the store, and buy a new one!
There has been talk of child benefit for working parents and yes that is a very good point but it is not the most critical point right now. Those able to work right now are middle class Ukrainians who had enough money or means to find private housing. Ukrainians currently living in state-provided free housing unable to work legally and not having enough money to live on are those we should be most worried about right now. They are going hungry.
I received this message last night, and this woman is in private housing, but spent her food money on rent:
And this one this afternoon. The family lives in a dorm where they cannot cook for themselves. This is what it is possible to shop for without access to a kitchen and with the generosity of private donors. This father would like to be able to work and provide for his family.
I’m going to stop here because I am just so tired, and emotionally drained, and no one asked for my opinion, and no one ever reads a lot of words. I am sure many interesting and stimulating discussions can be had in conference rooms, but I think emergencies require action, and we are in the middle of an emergency. Just my two cents which no one asked for. I’ll keep my head down doing what I do best — delivering grocery cards and talking/texting with the Ukrainians.
I never understand why so many are afraid to talk with them. They don't bite. They are wonderful, warm, generous, open people. They are all different, just like all of us. I would love to once be able to deliver some good news to them, too.