Fenninger and Wehsely are sounding the alarm about threats to affordable housing
Vienna (OTS) – Nehammer’s “Austria Plan” is an attack on social security and affordable non-profit housing. If he can implement his plans, it will drive even more people into poverty. The increases – from energy costs to food prices to rents – have dramatic consequences: “We experience every day in our social work that we have a part of the population who can no longer afford to live. The government has an urgent task: to bring inflation under control. Cuts in social security are the wrong approach. They endanger democracy and social cohesion
“warns Erich Fenninger, director of Volkshilfe Austria.
Sell-out at the expense of the population
„The sale of cooperative apartments is nothing more than a sell-off of social housing
“ says Tanja Wehsely, managing director of Volkshilfe Wien, outraged. “The Austrian successful model of non-profit housing has ensured social peace in the country for more than 100 years.”
“Thanks to the cost recovery principle, non-profit housing developers can provide affordable, high-quality apartments,” explains Martin Orner, housing law expert at Volkshilfe Wien. More than 700,000 apartments could fall victim to speculators at any time. “These affordable apartments would be taken away from the tenants, and non-profit housing developers would no longer be able to replace these lost apartments,” warns the managing director of Volkshilfe Wien.
Housing, a human right!
A sell-off of social housing would further exacerbate child poverty in Austria: more than 350,000 children are already at risk of poverty and exclusion.
There are enough sad examples of this profit-oriented sell-off of social housing: in Germany, for example, where only rudimentary social housing is available, rents in the cities have risen enormously. In Great Britain, social housing no longer exists, and remnants of it have degenerated into slums.
“Affordable housing is a human right, we need more public housing, healthier living and the expansion of tenants’ rights,” said Fenninger and Wehsely in unison. “People in Austria have been experiencing uncertainty and crises for years. Affordable housing, energy security for everyone and basic child security create the security that we need now.
“
Questions & Contact:
Volkshilfe Austria
Romana Bartl
Presse
+43 676 87841770
Romana.bartl@volkshilfe.at
volkshilfe.at
Volkshilfe Vienna non-profit company GmbH
Michael Glocker, BA
Press spokesman
+43 676 8784 1807
m.glocker@volkshilfe-wien.at
www.volkshilfe-wien.at