As long as Ukrainians are expected to survive on €40 per month pocket money, in organized housing in Austria where they are "fed" 3x per day, the drama with the cost of everything, including public transport, will not go away.
A short story🧵
A short story🧵
This morning I was translating for genetic testing in Europe's largest hospital for a Ukrainian woman who is 36, from Kherson (now occupied by Russia), has likely hereditary stage IV breast cancer, and is a single mother of 3 kids aged 14, 7 and 5.
She is living with her boyfriend, kids, sister & nephew in in what is a homeless shelter in winter. They receive payments in Vienna of c. €260 per adult and €145 per child per month, and feed themselves. Her kids still don't have blue cards and therefore no school/kindergarten.
The entire building (around 80 Ukrainians) will move in a few weeks. They were told the new location will be in the city center but they will be fed. It will house 350 people. When you are "fed", you lose the cash payments. This = only €40 per month pocket money per person.
She spends her days going from hospital to doctor to dentist to covid test, in addition to trying to feed and take care of 3 kids not in organized education/childcare. Due to her family situation and cancer treatments, she cannot work right now. She doesn't speak Ger nor Eng.
An optimist by nature, she told me today about plans to go to German courses and take a class to become a certified nail technician. She already has the skills, but needs the diploma. I listened to all of this with panic, wondering how the 5 of them will live on €200 per month.
It is in this context that you have to see the debate about free public transportation and the rest of it. If Austria did like Germany, and paid out a decent amount of money each month as social support, there would be no need for these special programs for Ukrainians.
It is a myth that all the kids are in school. It is a myth that all the families received Meldezettel and blue cards. It is a myth that everyone got a German class who wanted one. It is a myth that you can survive and feed your kids on these miserly handouts at today's prices.
The situation is even more dire for those living in rural villages and towns where the only connection to urban centres with doctors, shops, schools, bank, post etc are expensive bus and train tickets which cost far more than one can afford on €40 per month.
A one month extension is a good start, but it is not a solution. The solution needs to be not the train tickets, but blowing up Grundversorgung, burying it in the graveyard of terrible ideas where it belongs, and starting over with a fair social payment and right to work for all.
@threadreaderapp pls unroll
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