Trapped
As of October 1, Ukrainian refugees no long have free use of public transportation in Austria. This is a huge drama and essentially a prison sentence for those existing on €40 per month pocket money.
As of October 1, the Austrian government — federal government in coordination with the nine federal states — eliminated free use of public transportation for refugees from Ukraine. The free travel with Ukrainian passport was introduced when the first refugees arrived in March, and has been a literal lifeline for the vast majority, particularly those living in rural areas where life without a car is nearly impossible, and a train or bus stop becomes your only way to reach a doctor’s office, shop, school, etc.
This decision was surely taken by bureaucrats and politicians living on nice fat salaries who think, surely the Ukrainians can afford to pay €2.60 or €3.80 per ticket, but have absolutely no idea what it is like to live on €40 per month per the steady flow of messages I am receiving from residents of organized housing in which they are “fed” but receive only this minimal cash payment once per month. I don’t need to remind you all they are also banned from working while living in state-provided accommodation. And some of this organized housing is in very rural areas, meaning this decision is essentially a prison sentence for some.
In short — there is panic, and anger, and lots of tears. I have been flooded with messages. Rather than me tell you how upset the Ukrainians are, I thought it better to let their own words speak for themselves. Below please find translations of the messages I have been flooded with in recent days. For privacy, I have only left first names and towns of residence. In no particular order.
Kateryna, Gaflenz
Hi, I live in Gaflentz, Upper Austria. We have only one expensive store here (they opened it a few weeks ago). Once a week we travel to the Red Cross in the nearby town of Weyer for food donations. We also sometimes go to Amstetten (it’s an hour away). We do all of this by train (right now the bus routes are closed for repairs). To go to AMS or to German classes we have to travel to Steyr with two changes of train. We also sometimes have to go to Linz. We are 17 Ukrainians together with our children in this village. How we should survive in the future, we cannot figure it out. We are all without work. Although we would like to work! We do not want to be dependent on government handouts. We would really like those who make such decisions to hear from us, how this affects our lives. Thank you very much for your help!
Iryna, Vienna
Hi. My story: my husband Oleg has Glioblastoma and once every week or two weeks he must go to the hospital (blood tests, chemotherapy). Soon he should receive his “handicapped” pass, at least that’s what the ministry said, but he still doesn’t have it. He of course cannot work now. I am also not working now; I am learning German and taking care of our young son who isn’t old enough for school yet.
Oksana, Prellenkirchen
Briefly about public transport. To visit municipal offices, hospitals, and schools in rural areas? Also if we have questions to visit the charities? If there is no alternative to ÖBB trains…the Bratislava trains are the same issue, it’s the same tracks. And the VOR buses? We cannot reach the Ukrainian embassy without them. Also we cannot now even go back to Ukraine. No one expected this. They brought us here on those same buses from Arena Nova in April. And now we are totally stuck.
Viktoria, Vienna
Tanja, hi! Sorry if this isn’t really a question for you. They told us that we can write you about the public transport situation? Everyone is in shock and horror! What should we do? Who can we complain to and ask for help? I have €46 left for everything. My next social payment will only be in two weeks, I have two kids, my eldest is 12 years old and now the school wants us to pay €80 for a tablet. How can I afford to pay for tickets, too? He goes to football for free; I cannot afford to send him to an organized club. My youngest turned 5 in on October 7, I wanted to maybe take him to McDonalds, but this is so terrible about transportation, I cannot afford even that now…
Anna, Poysdorf
Hi. If you have time, please write about the situation for people like us who live with three times a day “food” and only receive €40 per month pocket money and nothing else. For us the bus which could take us to a store where we could buy clothes for example for the child for winter would cost €3.70 in one direction. So my child and I need €14 just to go to the store and back! Actually we aren’t buying clothes, but could use a coupon to get some. Maybe they could give us like 10 free rides per month? And please tell them to share instructions how to tell a child that we cannot buy fruit because we had to buy Nurofen which the doctor prescribed but it cost us €9.
Oleksandr, Vienna, BBU dorm
I live as you know in the BBU dorm in Vienna with my wife and two sons. Without access to public transportation I don’t even know how I will get my youngest to his school in the mornings. We only receive €40 per month pocket money. We now cannot go anywhere and do anything because we cannot afford the tickets. We asked the manager here and they told us they cannot help. It wasn’t their decision. Please tell those people who decide there are children and families and we cannot afford the price of the ticket on €40 per month per person, for those of us living in facilities where we are “fed” and don’t receive social payments.
Ella, Poysdorf
Good evening. Could you please add me to the petition? We live in Poysdrof, and all connections — school, AMS, hospital, Red Cross, German classes — are in Mistelbach. The train in one direction costs €3.80. We have no idea how to pay for the tickets! Thank you for everything you are doing!
Oksana, Vienna
Hi Tanja. I am sorry we are probably driving you crazy with our questions about how to pay for public transportation. But, if possible, please write about the situation for people with limited mobility in wheelchairs. The problem is our wheelchairs are not electric, and a person can only go around the city if someone else is pushing him/her. And this means, you have to buy two tickets. And at full price. Maybe some people will get Austrian documents confirming their disability, maybe not. And that takes a long time, won’t be anytime soon. And to receive it, you have to see lots of doctors. And that also requires riding public transportation! And the only extra payments for people with disabilities come after paperwork is confirmed. In Ukraine, handicapped people and those accompanying them can ride for free. We are trying to save money every way possible, but maybe some kind of discounted ticket so we could use it 10-15 days a month? Maybe they could give us that? Then we could try and combine into one day many trips (doctor, store, etc). But that is also hard for someone in a wheelchair to go around for more than 3 or 4 hours. They get really tired. But to sit at home the whole year is also really hard. We also cannot order transport services like Austrians in wheelchairs can. We cannot even go to the doctor…
Katerina, St Pölten area
We live in a village 30-40 minutes from St Pölten. I go to that city for German classes using the bus or train. I also signed the kids up for hockey in the city, because our friends’ kids go, and it is some contact in their native language, because in our village we are on the only family from Ukraine. Now hockey will be impossible, because we cannot afford the train tickets. To be honest, we haven’t even paid the school yet the money for the kids. I spent what we had on the lists of school supplies and backpacks. It is really difficult to buy a monthly pass for €87 when you only receive €215 per month. I don’t know what kind of discounts to ask for, but if we look at the real situation, then the problem is not just with the train but also the size of the social payments. They are really very small if you take into consideration the prices of everything here.
Natasha, Vienna, BBU dorm
We are 6 people: 5 adults and my daughter aged 12. We have to take her to and from school, so we would need a ticket for my husband and for her. My mom has to go to the doctor often. She cannot go alone, so I would need a ticket too. So therefore I would need at least 2 adult, 1 child, and 1 senior tickets. We receive only €40 per month pocket money person and nothing else. They do not give us any coupons for clothes, and told us not to expect any. They did not give us anything for school supplies and told us not to expect any. Yes, they feed us, but over two money they NEVER ONCE gave us fresh fruit or vegetables. We buy those in markets and in social supermarkets, we also need to be able to go there…and that also costs money. And we need money for school supplies. If on Monday my daughter doesn’t come to school it is a fine. If she goes without a ticket, also a fine. So how should we be able to pay when we don’t have any money at all? My husband and I work here in the BBU, we clean the toilets after the Syrians, they pay us €1.60 per hour, so each week we get about €90. We use that money to buy the kids fruit and vegetables, and sometimes eat something small in a cafe, because most of the food here isn’t really very edible. Now we will have to give all this money away to tickets? If we don’t scrub toilets, how would we survive? There is no other work, I looked, I could get a job in a hotel as a maid and live there but only if you have no kids and no old parents. Tanja, please don’t take this personally, I am very grateful to you and other volunteers for what you have done for us, but people in Austria really need to know about this, we are not alone with these problems, there are dozens of us in this dorm alone.
This public transportation drama with no grace period — the first fines were also handed out mercilessly yesterday — also means refugees who just arrived yesterday from Ukraine by bus, from war zones, have to stay at the Arrivals Centre until Monday, because there are no bus or subway or train tickets for them. Which is totally insane, but this is where we are.
So much for social Stadt Wien. But I have known this for months. Just look at the forgotten dorm in the 11th district. Those 200+ Ukrainians living in Haidihof don’t even get €40 pocket money per month; they will be now literal prisoners, unable to even move around town without fear of getting caught without a ticket.
This must change. The Austrian government must revert its decision. I see no other way out. If it does not, expect, as one volunteer in Tirol wrote yesterday in our group chat, a wave of psychological crisis events, to put it mildly.
I was very pleased to see BBU head Achrainer speaking out against this decision in the press yesterday. He doesn’t make these decisions, but has to deal with the fallout. In this sense, we are aligned. I have no lobbying power; he does. I hope he will use it.
Needless to say, if Austria was like Germany, and paid out an amount of money each money one can survive on (Germany pays out roughly double what Austria hands refugees on state support each month) and offered something like Germany’s €9 ticket, none of this would be a drama. Austria in its cheapness and pettiness and bureaucracy for the sake of it is driving people mad. Perhaps that is the intention? After all, refugees cannot vote.
Finally, one last story. I will meet her later today. Just read this. And tell me there isn’t something sadistic about the way Austria treats refugees in Grundversorgung.
That’s it for now. I will meet this young woman and her roommate in a few hours. I will give them cards and learn more about what happened to them. Several of you reached out and said you would like to help them pay the fine. I will learn more than then update accordingly.
Thank you for reading. Please do share this one. Everyone in Austria should know how hard this all is. It is the unseen crisis.
p.s. We also took an informal poll and only 4% (yes, four percent) of respondents had received Familienbeihilfe, and of course hardly any Ukrainians qualify for Klimabonus…they applied months ago…and yet…I say nothing. You know how the story goes.