4/26 Recap

Austria Trend Hotel Wien Case

Oleg was monitoring a chat group and detected a ‘call for help’ from a refugee in Vienna who was concerned for her family’s safety. Oleg alerted VM4U, which quickly responded. An investigation team, Svetlana, Oleg, and Adam, met with the concerned mother. The mother was staying in a BBU provided accommodation at the Austria Trend Hotel Wien with her teenage daughter and grandmother. Several concerns were reported to VM4U by the mother:

(1) The hotel staff were photographing her daughter against her expressed wishes and following the family to their room against their expressed wishes. This resulted in the family not feeling safe enough to leave their room unoccupied.
(2) The mother had already contacted the police, BBU, and hotel management but to no effect.
(3) The accommodations included pasta+tomato sauce+beans for three meals per day and repeated food poisoning to the point the family had stopped eating. Also, their room for 3 people had one double bed which resulted in one person having to sleep on the floor.
(4) An abrupt closure of the hotel was announced. The ~300 refugees staying at the hotel, many disabled, were informed that if they did not leave the hotel by a deadline that they would be fined 700 euros.

The family expressed the desire to leave this accommodation as soon as possible. However, the family was also waiting for their blue card, which is registered at the hotel address, and was worried about not receiving this critical document if they left. Svetlana and David proceeded to follow up with BBU. BBU informed VM4U that if the family left the BBU sponsored accommodation, they would lose all rights to any BBU befits in the future (shelter, food, hygiene, medical, psychological, etc.). VM4U contacted the Police on behalf of the family. The police were willing to identify the hotel staff who had been photographing and following the family (unlike previously). Nina provided the family with money for food in the form of cash and a SPAR gift card.

Thanks to the dedicated efforts of especially, David and Svetlana, working with the Police and BBU, the family has now been relocated to another accommodation here in Vienna where they feel safe and her daughter can remain in the same school. The other ~300 refugees, which include a large deaf-mute group, have been moved to other accommodations outside Vienna.

Routine Operations

1 van team, Adam, Sofia (YOUkraine), and Volodya (YOUkraine), picked up structural support beams from a donor and transported them to Landstrasser Hauptstrasse 138. The following day the structural support beams were transported to Kharkiv. The van was generously provided by Team Fynn, and independent group operating out the of UK and basing on the Polish-Ukraine border.