Unbureaucratic housing aid package now!
Vienna – After over a year of pandemic, increasingly more people are affected by the effects of the crisis. Short-time work or even unemployment mean that the livelihoods of more and more people are threatened. Particularly the rent arrears detected by experts could lead to a wave of evictions, warn the Christian trade unionists of the FCG/GPA (Fraktion Christlicher GewerkschafterInnen in der Gewerkschaft der Privatangestellten) union in Austria. Anyone without financial reserves in this Corona crisis is quickly to have problems in paying rent, those in charge of the union agree. In addition, there are operating costs, some of which have become even more expensive due to home office.
The chairman of the FCG/GPA, Wolfgang Pischinger, and the federal manager of the FCG/GPA, Franz Gosch, rate the government’s aid measures positively, but they warn that problems will not necessarily be solved, but only postponed. “Rent deferrals and the suspension of interest rate adjustments help at the moment, but payday is inevitable. And that could threaten people’s very existence even more,”said Pischinger.
Austria quickly needs to form an aid fund for subsistence allowance for housing
“Especially in a wealthy country like Austria, it must be guaranteed that people who suddenly lose their income through no fault of their own, but due to the Corona crisis, are supported and do not end up on the street,” Gosch clarifies. Those affected should be helped as unbureaucratically as possible, the FCG/GPA demand. It is to be welcomed that the repayment deadlines have been extended, but, as is well known, postponed does not mean cancelled. “What happens to the tenants who cannot find a job in the coming year and then have to repay the rent which they deferred for months? This can only have dire consequences,” the Christian trade unionists are convinced. The FCG/GPA therefore calls for a housing aid fund that is provided to people as unbureaucratically as possible.
“Housing is a basic human need. Nobody is to end up on the street. Human dignity begins with a roof over one’s head,”said Pischinger and Gosch in unison.
https://fcg-gpa.at/corona-krise-darf-nicht-zu-obdachlosigkeit-fuehren/ (in German)
