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Report on Homelessness in Austria

Statistical – Update 2005

Heinz Schoibl Helix – research and consulting, Salzburg

October 2005

Table of contents

introduction 3

1. extent of homelessness in Austria 3
2. recent studies on poverty and homelessness at local / regional level 4

2.1 Services for the Homeless in the city of Graz 5 2.2 Addiction and housing distress of juvenile drug consumers in the county of Tyrol

2.3 Housing stress and hidden homelessness in the rural district of Hollabrunn (Nether Austria, 2004)

3. Eviction proceedings in Austria 11
4. Survey on homelessness in the city of Salzburg (12/04) 17
5. Living temporarily with family and friends 19
6. Survey on buildings and dwellings in Austria (2001) 20

6.1 Dwellings with a very low standard 20 6.2 Housing in overcrowded dwellings 20 6.3 Housing in shanty towns 21

7. Provisions and services to alleviate / to fight homelessness 22
8. Living under threat of violence 23
9. No legal (sub) tenancy 23
10. Migration and Homelessness 23
11. Prison release and homelessness 24
12. Release from institutional care and homelessness 24

Appendix Target groups and methodological aspects of the annual surveys on homelessness in the city of Salzburg

Comments on this survey: This survey intended to produce an overview on the different services provided for homeless persons and families. Therefore it was not possible to count persons sleeping rough. So the number of persons sleeping rough is just a well based estimation. The survey gave evidence that in Austria the situation of services for the homeless differ between the nine counties in many respects. In some counties like Vienna, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg there are chain like structures of services in force. Centres for counselling and prevention of eviction – emergency shelters and day care institutions – supported housing and provisions for rehousing. In the counties Styria, Upper Austria and Nether Austria emergency services still have an overweight and provisions headed on resettlement are less elaborated. In the counties Carinthia and Burgenland there are only very few services for homeless persons provided – especially emergency services like shelters and asylums. In some counties (like Vienna, Tyrol, Styria) some old fashioned asylums are still working and can be characterized by low standards and very low provisions of individual support. Beside the professional emergency services in most counties of Austria cheap boarding houses and private hostels are accessible also for homeless persons and used for temporary shelter.

For a more detailed view on the extent and structure of homelessness in Austria it is still necessary to look at additional surveys on homelessness at local and / or regional level to build up nationwide estimations.

2. Recent studies on poverty and homelessness at local / regional

level (2003 – 2004)

Beside the recent main streams of social research in Austria (concerning labour market and employment, social security and the systems of social insurance, gender affairs etc.) in the last few years there were only few studies which focus on homelessness. Two exemplary studies – on services for the homeless in the city of Graz (capital of Styria) and on needs of adolescents with combined problems of addiction and homelessness in the county of Tyrol

were already presented in the statistical update 2004 – a short overview of the central results will be repeated here.

Additional to these results from the last year there is only one survey on insecure housing in a rural district in Nether Austria (district Hollabrunn, by Caritas 2004) which gives evidence about the extent of hidden homelessness and insecure housing in a rural context.

2.1 SERVICES FOR THE HOMELESS IN THE CITY OF G RAZ 1

Recently the city of Graz has charged BAWO to undertake a survey on provisions and services for homeless people and to develop measures and strategies to improve their access to services and / or the quality of support. This survey was finished at the end of 2003.

MAIN FINDINGS

The situation of the service providers in Graz is very complex. There are the statutory services (residual homes for single men and women, shared dwellings etc.) which are mainly funded by the city of Graz. Beside them some of the service providers in Graz are part of the Catholic Church (like Caritas, the order of St. Vinzenz etc.) and can use money from the church, from legacies and charitable donations. Some of the service providers are private NGOs which depend completely on the funding by regional and local authorities.

Organisational philosophy – effects on services

Just recently the services provided by the local authority have tried to build up more professional attitudes and are therefore developing a professional approach. These services are becoming more and more comparable to services provided by NGOs in the field of social work.

But there are many services provided by the Catholic Church with a charitable approach and a charitable philosophy of helping the poor. In these services there are almost no professional attitudes according to professional social work.

So in the concurrence of different organisational philosophies the attitude of ‘doing good’ is still dominant.

(^1) Stefan Ohmacht et al. / BAWO, Wohnungslosenhilfe in Graz, Wien 2004

There are only some services with high standards of professionalism – especially in services dealing with special target groups like homeless youth, mentally ill homeless etc.

Occupational aspects / career in the field of services for the Homeless

Only in a small part of the services for the Homeless in the city of Graz there are quite good occupational standards which allows long term occupation and / or a career in the organisation of the providers. According to low professional occupational standards the services in the city of Graz are characterized by atypical and marginal working conditions and have to deal with a high rate of fluctuation.

At all in the services for the Homeless in the city of Graz there are 335 persons occupied, many of them only part time. So the full time equivalent of the staff of the services is much less and corresponds with an equivalent of 145 full time jobs.

In many services the mostly unskilled social workers will not stay long in occupation, the average occupation time of the employees is not longer than about 2 years before they will change their job, leaving into services with more adequate structures and / or occupational standards.

Standards of (individual) support and / or services

The services for the Homeless in the city of Graz are mainly engaged in provisions of housing, many of them characterized by concentration into large institutions with low housing and professional standards. So many clients of the services for the Homeless are living in low standard facilities with only few professionals, if there are professionals at all.

The BAWO survey on services for the Homeless in Graz shows that there is a focus on alleviation and emergency services on the one hand and counselling services to help homeless persons to access into systems of social benefits, social housing etc. on the other hand. Beside that needs and demands of individual support are somewhat neglected (BAWO 2004, p. 81-82). There are only few exceptional services with high standards in individual support – mainly in service provisions with additional targets and / or specialised on specific target groups, like youth welfare and (mental) health.

Furthermore the BAWO survey suggests the implementation of counselling services to prevent eviction. Just recently the city of Graz has decided to improve the prevention of eviction and charged the Caritas with the development and implementation of a counselling centre with the focus on prevention.

2.2 ADDICTION AND HOUSING DISTRESS / HOMELESSNESS WITH YOUTH

AND YOUNG ADOLESCENTS IN THE COUNTY OF T YROL 3

The services for young people in Tyrol have declared that they increasingly have to deal with young people addicted to a combination of legal and illegal drugs – a kind of addiction which causes severe social problems – with parents, institutions of youth welfare like supported common housing, with school and / or vocational training. Because of insufficient service provisions many of these young persons are in threat of homelessness.

Therefore a regional study was charged to deliver an empirical proof of needs and to develop suggestions how to meet these needs.

In the course of this study a survey on services dealing with the target group of young people with combined problems of addiction and homelessness took part and gave evidence about the quantitative and qualitative aspects of their experiences. (Anyway it is necessary just to point out that this has not been a total count – just representative figures.)

Quantitative results

At all the services in the county of Tyrol, which took part in the study, had contact with 1.122 persons in the age between 14 and 25 years (including double counting, because some of the services like street work cannot deliver personal figures if they have only loose contact).

Mostly these persons are coming from rural parts of Tyrol but staying in the capital Innsbruck – asking for provisions / shelter / individual support etc. from the local services.

During the year 2003 there were about 250 young persons / young adults in contact with services for drug addicts as well as with services for homeless because of a specific mix of existential problems. About 50% were younger than 18 years; about 40% were young women.

(^3) Doris Gödl, Heinz Schoibl, Polytoxikomane Jugendliche und Wohnungslosigkeit, Salzburg 2004 (Multiple addiction and homelessness with youth and young adults in the county of Tyrol)

Reasons for housing stress:

o 60% of the households report eviction proceedings, mostly because of rent arrears. o 24% of the households are in the process of divorce and have to access new accommodations – but cannot afford the costs of the access of new accommodations. o Another about 20% are still living with relatives and don’t have an accommodation of their own.

Conclusions :

The main conclusion the authors of this survey take is that the empirical proof of the amount of insecure housing / in combination with extreme poverty makes it evident that there is a need for special provisions in the range of prevention, housing and individual support. Therefore the authors suggest a supported housing project – in cooperation with the existing public / private services in the district.

As far as it is known by now the implementation of this supported housing project has already started.

3. Eviction proceedings in Austria^6

The services for the homeless in Austria and especially the umbrella organisation BAWO have started to develop measures and methods to prevent eviction already more than 10 years ago. Since then the first services in Salzburg and Vienna have spread out there provisions, service providers in other counties and cities in Austria have started to cope methods and provisions of prevention. But until now it was impossible to give a figure about the quantitative aspects of evictions.

Finally after repeated appellations to the ministry of justice it was at least a small success to get evidence on the numbers of eviction proceedings which took place in 2002. This statistic covers all counties and regions of Austria and gives evidence on the regional and local aspects of eviction but gave no evidence about the execution and individual consequences of these legal acts. Therefore it was impossible to answer the important question if and how many persons had to leave the former household and / or how many of them became homeless in order of eviction.

Anyway when BAWO produced a report on eviction proceedings in Austria some members of the Austrian parliament put a parliamentary request on the issue of evictions. Finally the ministry of justice gave statistical evidence about proceedings and executions of evictions for the years 1999 until 2003. In a second answer the ministry of justice gave further details for the year 2004 but in this answer there are no details about the effects of the eviction proceedings.^7

(^6) Stefan Ohmacht (BAWO), Delogierungsverfahren in Österreich (eviction proceedings in Austria, Vienna

7 2003 Mag a^ Karin Miklautsch, Ministry of justice, Anfragebeantwortung (answer to a parliamentary request), Vienna, 10.12.2004 and 27.5.

T^ ABLE

E^ VICTION PROCEEDINGS AND EXECUTIONS IN THE YEAR

county

proceedings

executions

numbers

in %

Vienna

17993

7063

39%

Nether Austria

2660

1134

43%

Burgenland

243

104

43%

Upper Austria

1699

1393

82%

Salzburg

1652

672

41%

Styria

3111

1444

46%

Carinthia

1109

577

52%

Tyrol

1285

677

53%

Vorarlberg

419

347

83%

Austria

30171

13411

44%

Source of data: BMJ – answer on a request in the parliament, 27.5.

This table gives an overview on eviction proceedings and executed evictions: In the period of 2003 at all 13.411 evictions were executed. Morethan 40% of the eviction proceedings lead to an execution of the eviction, so these households will have to look for a new accommodation – ifthey have the necessary money or get the monetary support to access a new flat.This table shows quite wide differences between the counties, especially in Vienna there is only a very low rate of executions (39%), on the otherhand in the counties of Upper Austria (82%) and Vorarlberg (83%) a very high number of proceedings were actually executed and led to aneviction.

T^ ABLE

E^ VICTION

-^ PROCEEDINGS AND EXECUTED EVICTIONS

IN THE COUNTIES

county

inhabitants

8

eviction proceedings

executedevictions

eviction proceedings per

10.000 inh.

executedevictions per10.000 inh.

numbers ofevictedpersons

9

Vienna

1.550.

17993

7063

116

46

Nether Austria

1.545.

2660

1134

17

7

Burgenland

243

104

9

4

190

Upper Austria

1.376.

1699

1393

12

10

Salzburg

1652

672

32

13

Steiermark

1.183.

3111

1444

26

12

Kärnten

1109

577

20

10

Tyrol

1285

677

19

10

Vorarlberg

419

347

12

10

634

total

8.032.

30171

13411

38

17

Sources: Ministry of justice (parliamentary questionnaire – 10.12.2004); Statistics Austria, census 2001

In the course of the year 2003 at all more than 27.000 households were threat by eviction and actually 12.411 households got evicted. Thereforeapproximately 24.502 persons were in the sense of this fact urged into housing stress and / or homelessness. 8

STATISTIK AUSTRIA, survey on households in Austria 2001 9

Estimation according to following calculation: As far as we know approximately 90% of the eviction proceedings / evictions are concerning households; in the average2.03 persons are living together in one household.

In the year 2004 at all there have been 31.131 eviction proceedings (including legal renouncement of tenancy contracts). According to practical experience about 90% of these trials refer to households and about 10% to facilities like offices etc. On the average in households in Austria there are living about 2 persons.

So we can build up a well based estimation:

o During the year 2004 there were about 57.000 persons threatened by eviction o That is about 0.7% of the population of Austria. o About 44% of these eviction proceedings were actually executed (in 2003), therefore about 25.000 persons had actually to apply for a new accommodation and / or were actually homeless.

In the light of this new statistical evidence we have to state that until now our estimations of the numbers of evictions (based upon the empirical experiences of the services to prevent eviction in Vienna) were to high when we assumed that about 2% of the population in Austria is threatened by eviction per year.

As we can see now the situation in the larger cities is much worse than in smaller communities and rural parts of Austria:

o The city of Vienna leads the ranking between the Austrian counties (the city of Vienna has the status of a county and a city). About 57% of all eviction trials took place in Vienna – with an average eviction rate of 3.8%. Next in the ranking are the counties Salzburg (2.7%) and Burgenland (2.6%). o In the most counties of Austria the eviction rate in the capitals is much higher than the average in the counties. The highest rate can be stated in the city of Vienna with an average of 3,8% (in relation to the numbers of tenancy households), in some districts of Vienna the eviction rate climbs up to incredible 13%. Also the county of Salzburg has a very high average rate of 2,7%. In the capital of Salzburg the eviction rate is up to 3.5% and therefore almost as high as the average rate of Vienna. o It is only the county of Upper Austria where the relation between county average and the eviction rate in the capital is different. So in Upper Austria the average of evictions is only 1.6% but the eviction rate in the capital Linz 1.4% is even lower than that.

4. Survey on homelessness in the city of Salzburg

As every year since 1994 in October 2004 the service providers for the homeless in Salzburg undertook a survey on homelessness (Gölzner 2005), focusing on homeless clients which have been in contact with the services for Homeless in the city of Salzburg. Because there are no services for persons in housing stress and / or homelessness in the rural parts of the county of Salzburg it is not possible to provide adequate data about homelessness outside of the city.

553 Homeless in the city of Salzburg in 10/ o 519 adult homeless, 19% of them are women o 34 juvenile homeless (less than 18 years), 38% of them are women.

536 Homeless in the city of Salzburg in 10/ o 512 adult homeless, 20% of them are women o 24 juvenile homeless (less than 18 years), 58% of them are women.

628 Homeless in the city of Salzburg in 10/ o 467 adult homeless , 18% of them are women o 23 juvenile homeless (younger than 18 years), 48% of them are women o 33 homeless citizens of other EU countries , 18% of them are women o 42 homeless migrants (from Turkey, Ex-Yugoslavia etc.); 52% of them are women o 24 homeless refugees , 12% of them are women o 39 persons were living in overcrowded accommodations , 56% of them are women.

605 Homeless in the city of Salzburg in 10/ o 467 adult homeless with Austrian nationality; 20% of them are women o 36 juvenile homeless; 48% are young women o 26 adult homeless from other EU-countries; 15% are women o 50 adult homeless from other countries; 63% are women (many of them are victims from domestic violence) o 12 homeless asylum seekers; 8% female o 14 persons were living in overcrowded accommodations, 20% of them were women

It is evident that there is a very large group of the homeless persons in the city of Salzburg which are living at friends and neighbours (more than 30%). Particularly high is also the share of homeless persons which are living in (cheap) boarding houses without any form of individual support (15%). Still about 10% of the Homeless in the city of Salzburg are sleeping rough (mainly male).

On the other side only 14% of the homeless persons are living in conditions of supported housing and further 15% are accommodated in emergency shelters provided by services for the Homeless. At all more than half of the Homeless in the city of Salzburg are living under conditions far away of the services for Homeless. This situation has been almost the same also in the last years since the annual surveys in the city of Salzburg have started. At the same time also the absolute numbers of homeless persons did not change significantly (most of the small changes between the yearly results could be explained with fluctuation in the staff of services which took part in the survey etc.)

On the other hand the survey on homelessness in Salzburg proves that the services for homeless have difficulties to reach young adults and women in housing stress or homelessness according to a loss of acceptance and / or a lack of age and gender specific provisions of support – starting with the age of 18 years the number of young and female clients is decreasing.

So we have to state that the services for the homeless in the city of Salzburg are not able to fight homelessness effectively.

5. Living temporarily with family or friends

In Austria there is no nationwide survey on these target group; the number of homeless persons which are known to services for the Homeless living with family or friends is counted only at the level of the city of Salzburg. This survey gives evidence that this form of hidden homelessness is much higher than there are places to provide supported housing. Especially homeless women are up to a high rate living with friends and relatives. Because of the lack of a systematically survey on hidden homelessness / living temporarily with family or friends we suggest a calculation on the base of the empirical findings in the survey in Salzburg.

The relation between homeless people living with friends / family and persons housing in supported accommodations is about 1.34 : 1. So it is possible to estimate the amount of persons living temporarily with friends:

• the total number of supported accommodation in Austria is 6.568 places,
• estimated number of homeless persons living with friends / family: 8.794 persons.

6. Survey on buildings and dwellings in Austria (2001)^15

In Austria there is no legal definition of housing standards, therefore it is not possible to give a legally based definition of “unfit for habitation” and / or numbers of dwellings of this category and / or numbers of persons living in dwellings unfit for habitation.

6.1 DWELLINGS WITH A VERY LOW S TANDARD

There is only a law on tenancy contracts which is also defining that a the lowest standard level of dwellings (with no central heating, no water inside, no toilet inside the flat) also the possible rent is very limited (about 1 € per square meter and month).

In Austria ∅ 3,3% of all dwellings belong to this very low housing standard (at all: 109.406); ∅ 2,6% of the Austrian inhabitants are living in dwellings like that.

Therefore there are 205.195 persons living in 109.406 dwellings of the lowest category.

We don’t know how much of these dwellings have an even worse housing standard and how many persons are living under conditions like that.

6.2 HOUSING IN O VERCROWDED DWELLINGS

In the year 2001 the last survey on houses and dwellings were undertaken. Therefore it is possible to give exact numbers of the amount of dwellings and inhabitants living in overcrowded circumstances (2 persons and more in 1 room), concerning dwellings with one or two room (including kitchens with a size of 4 square meter and more):

(^15) survey on houses and dwellings by “Statistik Austria”, 2001; published Vienna 8/