Pledge 31A – Vienna

On 18 September 2019, The Vienna Executive City Councillors, Peter Hacker and Jurgen Czernohorszky signed new pledge to the EU Pillar of Social Rights, respectively on principle 19 housing and assistance for homeless and on principle 11 early childhood education and care.

On early childhood education and care, Vienna is committed to promote good quality services by:

•An education plan for all the kindergartens, providing support for activities related to communication, language, culture and technology.
•Creating additional kindergarten places for children aged 0 to 2.
•Introducing non-contributory kindergarten system, free of charge for all children from 0 to 5 years old. Since 2009, more than 250 000 children benefit from this system and parents have saved up to 3,000 EUR annually.
•Improving the training of kindergarten staff with new pedagogical training programmes.

To combat homelessness, Vienna is proposing a new strategy for 2019-2022 including:

•Better coordination between eviction prevention and the counselling centre for supported housing services as well as the expansion of the outreach services.
•Providing standard emergency accommodation and immediate counselling.
•Reinforcing Housing First solutions and long-term institutional alternatives (instead of overnight shelters and transitional accommodation).
•Establishing peer support, former homeless persons are complementing and supporting social workers with their insights experience.

With holistic approaches, Vienna is putting the inclusion and wellbeing of all its citizens at the heart of its social policies.