Austria took the stigma out of social housing. Here's what Canada could learn
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“At that time, I was pregnant with my first kid,” she said. “I lived in a two-room apartment … it was an OK building, but it was small for us.”
[She] went to an online portal, entered her income and requirements, and was ranked alongside thousands of other residents. Soon, she was assigned a new apartment: a three-bedroom unit in a brand-new building, adjacent to Vienna’s Central Station.
“I love it. It’s in the middle of Vienna,” she said. “A lot of young families moved in at the same time…. There’s a big campus here, with a kindergarten and primary school. There’s dancing classes, and a boulder bar, and a huge park.”
[She] wasn’t desperate to find housing. She and her partner earned middle-class incomes. But in recent years, Vienna has become renowned among housing experts for its model of social housing, which provides heavily subsidized rental units to more than half of the city’s two million residents.
The key is taking profit out of construction (at least 96.5%), and a robust government that isn’t afraid to impinge on the private sector.
I would love to see something like this in Canada, but I don’t think our politicians (or electorate) have the guts.
Austria took the stigma out of social housing. Here's what Canada could learn | CBC News
While Europe struggles with similar trends to Canada of rising rents and skyrocketing home prices, experts say social housing models like Austria’s are among the best defence against a growing affordability crisis.
CBC (www.cbc.ca)
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“At that time, I was pregnant with my first kid,” she said. “I lived in a two-room apartment … it was an OK building, but it was small for us.”
[She] went to an online portal, entered her income and requirements, and was ranked alongside thousands of other residents. Soon, she was assigned a new apartment: a three-bedroom unit in a brand-new building, adjacent to Vienna’s Central Station.
“I love it. It’s in the middle of Vienna,” she said. “A lot of young families moved in at the same time…. There’s a big campus here, with a kindergarten and primary school. There’s dancing classes, and a boulder bar, and a huge park.”
[She] wasn’t desperate to find housing. She and her partner earned middle-class incomes. But in recent years, Vienna has become renowned among housing experts for its model of social housing, which provides heavily subsidized rental units to more than half of the city’s two million residents.
The key is taking profit out of construction (at least 96.5%), and a robust government that isn’t afraid to impinge on the private sector.
I would love to see something like this in Canada, but I don’t think our politicians (or electorate) have the guts.
Austria took the stigma out of social housing. Here's what Canada could learn | CBC News
While Europe struggles with similar trends to Canada of rising rents and skyrocketing home prices, experts say social housing models like Austria’s are among the best defence against a growing affordability crisis.
CBC (www.cbc.ca)
You can’t build high rise due to zoning, social housing isn’t a solution it’s a work around, to the problem of severe urban sprawl coupled with 1960s infrastructure and mass immigration.