Vienna, the cosmopolitan city with a heart for tourists and investors, also has its downsides. COVID has contributed to the fact that the situation has deteriorated drastically for very many people. People who have so far found their way through life on their own, made a living, earned a living, are suddenly on the street, are dependent on concrete help, need emergency shelter, a warm meal. COVID has brutally exacerbated the poverty problem. Interview with Tanja Wehsely, Managing director of Volkshilfe Wien:
“We are standing in front of one of our homeless facilities. We have emergency quarters here and also a day center, that is, people who are on the street and need something quickly come here. Now that is being operated under Corona measures. That is definitely also a European problem, the difficulties in the housing market, whether it is rent or property, will affect people all over Europe, and when someone becomes unemployed they can sometimes no longer pay the rent – or the credit can no longer pay Homelessness, or the threat of homelessness, is one of the big European questions. “
The next big problem: losing your apartment and home
We need immediate aid to secure apartments and prevent delegations, so we have to pull together. Housing is a national competence, but I still hope that the EU will come up with something. Otherwise it will take on a dimension that we have not yet seen in Austria or Vienna in addition to the high unemployment in Europe. Vienna is traditionally a city with a very high rent share, the share of public housing is also high, that is a certain security, but apart from that, the next big problem for people without work is losing their apartment and home.
Only the rich get through the crisis unscathed
Only the rich come through this crisis unscathed, the wealthy and the rich. That’s so. The Corona crisis is a poverty crisis that will trigger a housing crisis. Once again: only the rich and well-to-do get by and those who have a secure job that is kept, that is mostly a job in the public sector, i.e. cities, government institutions, the state. These are the safe havens in a crisis. Everyone else, from poor to middle class, will have a hard time because the health crisis will be followed by the poverty crisis. Unemployment triggers the fact that you have no money, triggers you cannot pay loans, no rents – the next thing is homelessness, across Europe, on a scale that we have never seen before.
The “new poor” also come from the middle class
The new thing about the Corona crisis is that it now not only affects people who were previously at risk of poverty, who got through their lives hard, who were dependent on support, including from Volkshilfe, but it also affects people like you and me , medium-sized businesses, one-person companies, business people, people who have had good jobs and got through, who have now ended up in unemployment, possibly in short-time work. The money is no longer enough, the shops are closed. We (at Volkshilfe) have an influx of over 70 percent more people who come to us to receive emergency aid, food aid. There are people in the queue who have never thought in their life that they would one day be dependent on food packages for themselves and their families.
The crisis will certainly be with us for another three to five years. Unemployment: it will take many years to bring it back down to a low level. Companies will file for bankruptcy, companies will go bankrupt – that will affect the average consumer – even in a country like Austria. “
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