ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Displacement Pressure in Vienna: Learning from Tenants’ Experiences for Policy and Planning Responses.

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 13 | HOUSING AND SHELTER

Speaker

Ms Judith Schnelzer (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Description

This contribution takes a look at the affected tenants under economic pressure in the private rental sector in Vienna and how those have navigated their experiences of (displacement) pressure by incorporating seeking help at institutional interventions into their strategies. In Vienna, Austria, housing affordability has decreased especially with the onset of multiple crisis-related dynamics, such as the Covid-19 pandemic or the energy and inflation crises. Despite the extensive welfare state environment and the high share of a decommodified housing stock in Vienna (about 45% social/council and subsidized housing), these dynamics have further tightened the Viennese housing market and – particularly in the commodified private rental sector – rents have risen sharply. As a result, many tenants have come under (displacement) pressure. In response to these housing-related challenges, the City of Vienna implemented several new policy and planning measures, in particular to prevent evictions and to enable the provision of more affordable housing. For instance, the so called Wohnschirm (umbrella for the house) was newly introduced for rental and energy arrears, a billion Euros were made available by the federal government to subsidize housing construction and provision or partial and temporary rent caps were introduced. However, many tenants applied for council housing or to the Wohnschirm, putting pressure on these by overloading services and exhausting their capacity or financial resources. Empirically, this contribution draws on 18 in-depth interviews with tenants affected by rent increases in the private rental sector and their experiences of displacement pressure. The interviewees are tenants who have also turned to (newly introduced) institutional interventions in the hope of alleviating the pressures they are experiencing. This contribution analyses the interrelated dimensions of a) tenants’ strategies of navigating displacement pressure, b) tenants’ expectations of policy and planning responses, c) the impacts institutional measures have on tenants’ lives and the housing market, and d) limitations of institutional responses in alleviating (displacement) pressure. This analysis will help to tailor policy and planning responses to housing affordability crisis. Based on the results, this contribution will critically discuss the ambivalent role of the policy and planning interventions in shaping the outcomes and impacts for the affected tenants. On the one hand, these responses may not only alleviate the pressures (at least temporarily), but they also create states of limbo and uncertainty, which even bears the risk of exacerbating displacement pressure when tenants rely on the help of institutional interventions. Moreover, while these efforts may support tenants in their efforts to keep their homes or help them move, they appear to enable a form of state-funded reproduction of the profit-maximising rationale of the private rental sector. By incorporating the perspective of those affected into planning, this contribution will outline dimensions that seem to be neglected in policy and planning responses, in particular towards the experienced affects, emotions, and psychological implications for tenants under pressure.