Vienna, Austria, has long been hailed for its progressive social housing policies, which started in the 1920s and 30s and today see more than 60 per cent of the city’s 1.8 million residents living in subsided housing, while more than half of the housing market is either city-owned flats or cooperative apartments.
Eighty per cent of Viennese are renters, and thanks to strict rent control laws pay only 20 to 25 per cent of their income on housing — and in some cases as little as 8 per cent.
As per Vienna’s deputy mayor Kathrin Gaal the city’s social housing policies had been “shaped by the political commitment that housing is a basic right”.
Vienna’s public and co-op housing is beautifully built and provides communal facilities like this pool and sauna”. People from all walks of life live in these homes and they’re never kicked out even as they earn more. It is a proof that public and private interests can work together to create affordable and liveable cities.
Vienna’s Gemeindebauten, or council estates, are also uniquely high-quality and beautifully built — unlike post-war housing projects commissioned in many other cities such as Paris or London — and are not exclusively for the poor.
The income cap to access social housing is so high that 80 per cent of people qualify, and once approved contracts never expire even if the resident’s income increases, leading to greater economic diversity within the communities.
