Evaluation of the area renewal offices responsible for communal housing in Vienna

The aim of this study was to evaluate the situation of the area renewal offices responsible for communal housing (short: ARO/CH). At the beginning of 2007 the area renewal offices have been restructured, and so the main interest was to identify – and counteract – problems that might have been caused by these changes.

During June and September 2008 we interviewed 23 holders and employees of the nine ARO/CH as well as two representatives of the City of Vienna. The topics of the guided interviews were the structure and the tasks of the ARO/CH, their experience with the contracting authorities and with different partners, their central fields of activity, as well as the working conditions of the ARO/CH employees.

The most important changes since 2007 were the separation between the “classical” ARO, now called ARO/urban renewal, and the ARO/CH, as well as a considerable increase in the funds of the ARO/CH, a reduction of their numbers so that their areas of activity match with those of “Wiener Wohnen”, and some other changes regarding contents and organisation. Interviewees that had already worked in the ARO/CH before 2007 regarded the restructuring as a success, the ARO/CH now being both more independent and more appreciated.

Like in the last evaluation in 2004, most of the holders of the ARO/CH are architects, civil engineers, city and regional planners, but their employees have predominantly been trained in the fields of social sciences or social work (and often have already some relevant work). But other than in 2004, different approaches to work did not seem to be a problem.

Although the ARO/CH have got more money and the teams are bigger than before 2007, some employees criticised a lack of personnel. Besides, some interviewees mentioned that they wanted to work full-time, but only had part-time contracts – about fifty per-cent of the employees are working part-time (between less than 20 and 35 hours per week). The employers had ambivalent feelings with regard to the high number of part-time workers. On the one hand, the higher the number of part-time workers is, the more working hours are needed e.g. for staff meetings, and this means less resources for other activities. On the other hand, employing more part-time workers facilitates a more flexible organisation of work and makes it possible to cover a broader spectrum of competences and qualifications. In the light of these considerations, several employers wanted 30-hours-employment contracts.

Since one of the main requirements contained in the public tenders is the knowledge of foreign languages in all ARO/CH staff members speak various foreign languages – but in some offices nobody speaks Turkish and/or the languages formerly spoken in Yugoslavia. although these are the only languages that are needed in daily work. More important than language competence is intercultural competence: It seems to be easier for migrant clients to build up a relationship with somebody speaking their mother tongue; and it has proven to be even more helpful if the adviser himself has a migrant background.

The most important tasks of the ARO/CH are general counselling, the settling of conflicts and work in the field of prevention, networking as well as public relations, and – inside their respective institutions – administrative tasks and quality management. Like in 2004, both the managers as well as the employees criticised that the settling of conflicts took too much time that should be used for prevention, as only prevention would lead to sustainable changes. Many interviewees argued that the extensive opening hours of the ARO/CH offices required too many staff resources which otherwise could be used for prevention work. 60 hours per week are needed for standby duty, although in most offices there is only a small number of walk-in-customers. The long opening hours that are demanded by the City of Vienna were interpreted as a strategy to ensure that the ARO/CH mainly function as contact points and deal with individual cases, whereas most interviewees want to focus on prevention, and this produces some discontent.

The fact that the job description of the ARO/CH is quite open is not always welcomed, but also criticised by about half of the interviewees: They think that the work programme is too broad and cannot be fulfilled and they suspect the City of Vienna of wanting the ARO/CH to keep their clients calm and under control. Besides, the compliance of the work programme is considered to be difficult, as the ARO/CH have different customers all aiming at something else.

Not only MA 25 is seen as the official customer, but – other than in 2004 – also the office of the executive city councillor. Although the cooperation with both of them is considered to be positive, there was some critique on various levels, e.g. in part because of problems in communication – sometimes the ARO/CH are informed too late and do not get any feedback for their work –, in part because of the requirements with regard to financial statements and work reports, and almost in all cases because of the short duration of the contracts. Other than in 2004, the fact that the ARO/CH are linked to MA 25 was hardly seen as a problem and therefore there were no alternative ideas about this.

It was criticised frequently that the customer had not defined quality criteria for the work of the ARO/CH. As the interviewees are not aware of such criteria, there are a lot of fantasies in this field. There exist lots of quality management measures, the most important being further training and regular supervision.

The ARO/CH are cooperating with „Wiener Wohnen“, with politicians on the regional level, as well as with various public and private institutions. The work relations especially with “Wiener Wohnen” have become much better than in 2004, although some problems that have already existed then were mentioned again. According to the Annual Report 2007 45 percent of the general consultations carried out by the ARO/CH refer to “Wiener Wohnen” – so it is evident that this institution still has problems as regards its information policy. Politicians on the regional level are regarded as important partners, but their individual commitment seems to vary a lot, and most interviewees mentioned the risk of being taken in by politicians. There is nearly no cooperation between the ARO/CH, because of a lack of time networking only takes place at the “jours fixes” (which are regarded as important). Cooperation with the ARO/urban renewal only takes place if the same holder manages both ARO – and in these cases synergies are considered to be of great value.

In the interviews an important focus was laid on the activities of the ARO/CH. With regard to conflict solution it was mentioned that it was not easy to find out whether a conflict was really caused by noise (the most important reason for conflicts) or whether the tenants had racist feelings against the persons they were complaining about. No matter what the background was, the ARO/CH could only deal with the noise problem. (By the way, also employees working in the ARO/CH sometimes were confronted with racism.) Although competence of mediation was decidedly mentioned in the tender and in most of the ARO/CH mediators are employed, classical mediation is only rarely used – mostly only mediative techniques are applied.

As already mentioned, according to many interviewees community work should be enhanced as only this field of activity shows preventive and sustainable effects. However, most ARO/CH work on projects and organize events that can be classified as community work.

A new focus in the activities of the ARO/CH is working with tenants’ councils. Cooperating with them is helpful for the ARO/CH as the councils provide information, act as an ombudsman for the tenants and have the role of a multiplier in various directions.

Finally, as regards the working conditions of the ARO/CH employees it became evident that their job satisfaction is very high, although sometimes complaints about the high workload were uttered. Rather often the interviewees wanted more commitment and support from their employers and criticised low wages as well as the lack of monetary incentives.