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Similar to asylum seekers
There are presently around 38 000 applications for
asylum in the country. Only 9000 people are provided with State accommodation.
Around 2000 people have a place in accommodation of NGOs. The rest rely mostly
on unstable accommodation. BAWO (Bundesarbeitgemeinschaft
Wohnungslosehilfe) estimates that only 1/3 of asylum seekers is given a place to
stay by the Government. In different regions of the country, organizations
receive public funding to provide emergency accommodation to this small
proportion of asylum seekers. For this reason, Marion Kremla from Asyl
Koordination, a platform for refugee assisting organizations throughout the
country, believes the housing situation of many asylum seekers isn’t so
different from that of undocumented migrants although there aren’t any
organizations specializing in help for undocumented people in Austria. She
believes that almost all the member organizations are working with undocumented
people, mostly providing legal counseling.
Solutions
Several organizations may rent apartments and then
sublet them at a reasonable price. Although rejected asylum seekers are expected
to leave the accommodation provided by an organization, some rejected asylum
seekers stay on after having received the negative reply, sometimes because they
were permitted to stay (usually in emergency cases or after a long-lasting
relationship with a client), other times because they did not agree to leave.
When organizations have no more space, they tend to first contact organizations
that have a lot of space, such as Caritas and some Church organizations, and only afterwards they find
out about possible space in night shelters. Caritas has around 450 spaces in shelters and supported housing in
Vienna and its surrounding regions (as well as other spaces in other regions).
In the Evangelische Diakonie,
one may generally stay for up to 91 days, though longer term accommodation is
provided in special cases. Michael Bubik from the Evangelische
Diakonie explains that when a person finds work and is able to pay for
accommodation (when it is possible to assess a person’s income), it will be
asked to leave. Caritas and the Evangelische Diakonie are the organizations that are able to provide help to the
largest number of asylum seekers in Austria. However, the capacities of all NGOs
are stretched to the limit and insufficient to provide to all.
Squat
As an example of a more alternative initiative to house
undocumented migrants, a small NGO in Vienna is in touch with a squat inhabited
by mostly Austrians which provides space for about ten refugees, some of whom
are undocumented. Unfortunately this isn’t an ideal place for them to stay as
the house is often subject to raids.