The 50-member group went to Austria to review the nation's heavily-subsidized social housing program.
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A bunch of Democratic Socialists and different far-left pols have spent a lot of the previous week on an expenses-paid journey to Vienna as progressives push so-called “social housing” statewide.
State Sen. Julia Salazar, fellow Brooklyn-based socialist state Assemblywomen Emily Gallagher and 5 different state legislators had been amongst a virtually 50-member group – together with New York housing organizers and different activists – who landed in Austria Monday to be taught extra concerning the nation’s heavily-subsidized social housing program that serves folks of all incomes.
The group visited the Karl Marx and different housing complexes, met with with Vienna’s Chamber of Labour, dined with non-public labor leaders, gushed over “single-lane roads” that restrict automotive use, and checked out 50-cent public bathrooms, in keeping with Gallagher’s tweets.
“Touring Karl Marx Hof, an infinite public housing complicated the place you possibly can dwell should you apply and make lower than 3K a month,” Gallagher tweeted Monday. “The lease is — everlasting – regardless of in case your [sic] revenue, and you may change models. Kindergarden, library, bike storage, parking and gardens included #When In Wien.”
Whereas most of the pols arrived house as early as Friday, Gallagher was anticipated to move again to New York on Tuesday, her reps stated.
The journey’s bills — together with airfare and lodging — are being picked up by numerous foundations and different non-public donors. It was organized by a number of left-leaning coverage teams, together with Housing Justice for All, The Motion Lab, and New York College’s City Democracy Lab, in keeping with some who attended.
They declined to say which donors and foundations picked up the tab for the seven pols or what it value.
The most cost effective roundtrip flights from New York to Vienna had been operating about $700 on Friday, in keeping with Skyscanner.com. 4-star, one-bed resort rooms in Vienna might be had for $87 to $274 per night time, in keeping with Lodges.com.
Throughout her keep, Salazar raised eyebrows again within the States by suggesting she’d be all in on having the federal government seize non-public property in New York Metropolis to spur social housing.
“Expropriate them and permit neighborhood land trusts to amass the properties to really home folks,” tweeted Salazar Wednesday.
She was responding to a report in The Metropolis suggesting Large Apple landlords are purposely holding tens of hundreds of rent-stabilized models for “ransom” by leaving them vacant to assist manipulate adjustments to hire legal guidelines.
The next day, fellow Democratic Socialist and Queens Councilwoman Tiffany Caban, who didn’t make the journey to Vienna, linked to the identical article and tweeted, “These models ought to be owned and maintained by residents and the general public.”
Different pols who visited Vienna included Sen. Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan; and state Meeting members Marcela Mitaynes and Phara Souffrant Forrest of Brooklyn, Linda Rosenthal of Manhattan, and Anna Kelles, who represents the Ithaca space.
The lefties’ journey spurred loads of response on social media. Some applauded them for in search of options to America’s flawed public housing system. Different questioned their motives — and financing.
“Who's paying for this junket? Hope it isn’t my fellow New York taxpayers! And if not who's paying for this glorification of Communism … Karl Marx,” tweeted @DickYoungsGhost.
“So what’s the plan Gallagher once you come house from this bulls–t junket?” one other critic @ImpunityCity tweeted. “You suppose the builders that personal you and your fauxgressive ally electeds are going to construct housing like this with out topping it off with 50 flooring of condos? And sufficient of the bike bulls–t narrative.”
Gallagher by way of Twitter insisted the journey wasn’t “taxpayer-funded” as did reps for the opposite pols when contacted by The Put up.
Cea Weaver, marketing campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All, defended the journey in a textual content message from Vienna Friday. She stated it was organized to introduce legislators and truthful housing advocates to the Vienna’s “social housing mannequin, which has earned world reward for offering protected, respectable, and inexpensive housing for almost one million tenants.”
“As New York stares down a housing disaster of historic proportions, we should look farther afield and discover all kinds of choices to accommodate New Yorkers,” she added.
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