Austria

Social Housing Isn’t Just A Vienna Thing

August 2, 2024 Leo Miranda, Next City. Create! Austria, Housing, New York (NY), Social Housing, Vienna

When it comes to housing people for highly affordable and highly livable homes for the long term, Vienna, Austria has no equal. The average Viennese pays a quarter or less of their post-tax income on rent and utilities and half of the city lives in public or subsidized housing. These buildings aren’t shabby or poorly-maintained either. “It looks like the housing we can’t afford in New York,” says Samuel Stein, housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. Vienna prioritizes housing supply, subsidizing the construction of 7,000 subsidized units a year while maintaining over 220,000 city-owned units. As Vienna grows its social housing stock, it suppresses housing costs overall.

Airport Disruption Entered Fourth Day; Starmer’s Government A Target

July 28, 2024 The Canary. Resist! airplanes, Airports, Austria, Canada, climate crisis, Climate Justice, Montreal, pollution, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom (UK)

On Saturday 27 July, peaceful protests took place in at least six cities across six countries in support of Oil Kills – an international uprising to end oil, gas and coal by 2030. Airport disruption was a key feature, again – with more arrests amid blockades. However, in the UK things went up a gear – as activists targeted Keir Starmer’s new Labour Party government. Across the UK, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada, protesters are gathering to demand their governments commit to establishing a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030 as well as supporting and financing poorer countries to make a fast, fair, and just transition.

Tenants And Left In Austria Demand Rent Freeze To Tackle Housing Crisis

August 14, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! Austria, Housing, Inflation, Rent Freeze

In the wake of an unabated housing crisis and soaring rents, working class sections in Austria have intensified their campaign demanding long-term rent freeze and reforms in the country’s rental law. In its petition, the Communist Party of Austria (KPO) demanded the Austrian People’s Party (OVP)-Greens-led federal government to freeze rents at the current levels until 2029. The Communist Youth of Austria (KJO) endorsed this demand. Groups including the Austrian Tenants’ Association and the Austrian Trade Union Confederation (ÖGB) have also called for a freeze on rents. According to reports, persistently high inflation and a rising Consumer Price Index (CPI) led to a continuous increase in rental prices across the country.

Austrian Censorship Of Peace Conference Is An Outrage

June 9, 2023 David Swanson, Kathy Kelly, John Reuwer and Brad Wolf, World Beyond War. Educate! Austria, Peace, Ukraine, Western imperialism

Forty-eight hours before a global peace conference in Vienna, Austria, was to begin, the venue host abruptly cancelled. Peace, it seems, cannot be discussed, especially peace in Ukraine. This news is a disturbing step in a growing trend. Owners of the venue which was to host the Summit for Peace in Ukraine, announced on Wednesday, 7 June, 2023, their decision to cancel the agreement holding the summit on their premises. Fortunately, a new location was secured in Vienna (and anyone on Earth can sign up to take part online), but not before a smear campaign against the summit had been launched.

Hundreds Of People Disrupt Fossil Gas Lobby Conference In Austria

March 27, 2023 BlockGas.org . Resist! Austria, climate crisis, Oil and Gas, Vienna

Vienna, Austria - More than four hundred people protested against the European Gas Conference (EGC), blocking streets around the Mariott Hotel Vienna, the conference venue. The European Gas Conference is a three-day ‘high-level’ event where representatives of fossil fuel companies such as Shell, Total and BP meet with financial investors and political representatives to take decisions on major energy projects. Despite massive police presence trying to keep the conference behind closed doors, hundreds of people blocked the streets. The protesters demand an end to the fossil exploitation being planned behind closed doors at the EGC and call for comprehensive changes in order to create a just energy system.

There Is An Alternative: Social Housing In Vienna

November 20, 2022 Ferd Wulkan and Ann Ferguson, Portside. Create! Affordable Housing, Austria, Housing, Vienna

Vienna, Austria - We all know we have a housing crisis all across our country. Rents have skyrocketed; there are insufficient numbers of apartments and houses available; many people in our cities are unhoused; rent control is considered too radical; there are few protections against evictions. The American dream has long included home ownership and stable safe neighborhoods. But the dream has become a nightmare as racism and capitalism leave some without homes altogether, and have displaced so many more. Most discouraging, few people see any alternatives to the current system of how housing is allocated and paid for. But there is an alternative. Two members of Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution (FCCPR) were in Vienna, Austria recently and saw how things could be different.

Protests Across Austria Demand Solution To Cost Of Living Crisis

September 19, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Austria, Energy, Housing, Inflation, Unions

On Saturday, September 17, trade unions and other working class sections hit the streets across Austria protesting the government’s inefficiency in tackling the ongoing cost of living crisis. The protests called by the Austrian Trade Union Federation (OGB) saw the participation of various groups including the Party of Labor of Austria (PdA), Youth Front, Communist Youth of Austria (KJO), Communist Party of Austria (KPO), and Links, among others. Marches were held in cities in all federal States including Vienna, Eisenstadt, Bruck an der Mur, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Bregenz, Lower Austria, and Upper Austria. According to the organizers, over 30,000 people participated in the protests, with 20,000 people having marched in Vienna alone. The protesters called on the politicians to take concrete actions to tackle the current crisis.

Scaling Deliberation—Austrian Citizens’ Councils

August 16, 2022 Rosa Zubizarreta, Resilience. Create! Austria, Democracy

Vorarlberg is a state of about 400,000 people lying at the western tip of Austria and bordering Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The state government has a history of exploring and experimenting with a variety of participatory approaches to involving citizens more deeply in shaping public policy. While cost considerations proved an impediment to using many them over the long term, for over a decade now the use of Citizens’ Councils has been a regularly recurring part of the state’s governance. In 2005, Manfred Hellrigl, former director of what is now the Büro für Freiwilliges Engagement und Beteiligung (Office for Voluntary Engagement and Participation), attended a workshop with the organizational change consultant Jim Rough on Dynamic Facilitation (discussed below), where he learned about this powerful way of working with small groups.

Austria Elects Independent Green Party-Backed President

December 5, 2016 Kasia Anderson, www.truthdig.com Educate! Austria, Elections

By Kasia Anderson for Truth Dig - Austrian voters have sent a message that they are unwilling to allow their country to be swept up in the populist wave that has boosted far-right politicians to powerful positions in the U.S. and Europe. On Sunday, one such politician, 45-year-old Freedom Party presidential nominee Norbert Hofer, was defeated by independent challenger Alexander Van der Bellen in Austria’s national election. The 72-year-old Van der Bellen was backed by the country’s Green Party, of which he is a former leader. Now he will be Austria’s president. Bloomberg reported that Van der Bellen bested Hofer by 51.7 percent to 48.3 percent.

Refugees March On Austria After Hungary Blocks Trains

September 5, 2015 Al Jazeera, www.aljazeera.com Resist! Austria, Europe, Germany, Hungary, Refugee

By Al Jazeera - Hundreds of mostly Syrian refugees have begun marching to the Austrian border after being prevented from boarding trains to Germany in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Authorities appeared to be allowing groups of refugees to make the 170km journey to the border crossing on Friday amid tense scenes across the country. Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons, reporting from near the M1 and M7 motorways outside Budapest, said authorities appeared to be helping the refugees make the journey despite fears the road would be blocked. "There are hundreds of people who have marched something like 10km from the centre of Budapest from the rail station to here...they say they have no option but to do this. "It may sound far fetched but they're intent on reaching the border.

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