Green pressure ensures important reform steps in rental and housing assistance – but standardization is still missing
Vienna (OTS) – “Now it’s official: Red-Pink has failed miserably in its big attempt to achieve uniform housing benefit. This means that support for housing needs remains complicated and opaque for the people affected. A double administrative structure is artificially kept alive,” said party leader Judith Pühringer.
Due to pressure from the Greens, important reform steps in rental and housing assistance were achieved, which will be decided in today’s state parliament. However, the Greens see the continued parallel management of housing and rental assistance as a missed opportunity. Citizens still have to laboriously research which benefit to support their housing needs they are entitled to and which municipal department is responsible for their claim.
The Vienna Greens are therefore calling for a uniform housing benefit and a citizen-friendly one-stop shop for support with housing needs. “A combination of housing and rental assistance into a single housing benefit would make the support services for housing costs more comprehensible and understandable,” adds housing spokesman Georg Prack.
2.46 million in tax money – no result
Particularly annoying: In the Vienna Social Fund there was a “Vienna housing benefit department” for which expenses of 2.46 million euros in tax money were incurred by 2021. In 2022, this department was dissolved by Red-Pink but without results. “The preparatory work for a uniform housing benefit has been pushed forward in the FSW for years. In the end, 2.46 million were incurred and nothing happened to the results. “This is a scandalous use of tax resources that needs to be cleared up,” criticizes Prack. The Greens therefore appealed to the City Audit Office about this matter last summer.
Reform of rental assistance under green pressure
The Vienna Greens describe it as an important and correct step that, following the reform of housing assistance, a reform of rental assistance has now also been decided in today’s state parliament. “The Greens have been calling for an improvement in rental assistance for a long time. The increase in rental assistance caps and the new regulation for hardship cases are to be welcomed. However, those receiving rental assistance continue to be put in a worse position than those receiving housing assistance. The reform is not ambitious enough,” criticizes Viktoria Spielmann, social spokesperson for the Vienna Green Party. “We finally need a comprehensible, uniform housing benefit. This means that people affected by poverty and those at risk of poverty in Vienna can be helped in a targeted and unbureaucratic manner,” concluded Pühringer, Spielmann and Prack.
As part of their “AT HOME TOO EXPENSIVE” campaign, the Vienna Greens are continuing to collect signatures to initiate a referendum on the topic of affordable housing. All information here: http://www.zuhausezuteuer.at
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