Housing Requirements of Young Adults in Vienna

Changing and Differentiating Young Peoples’ Housing requirements

In an ongoing process of refashioning lifestyles, the housing requirements of Viennese young adults have significantly changed and become more differentiated. Young adults today are much more socially and spatially mobile than young people were 20 years ago. They have diverse networks in real and virtual space. Many of them live differently than their parents did when they were young. Youth is no longer a time to prepare for living like their parents. Youth is seen as a specific time to test new lifestyles, routines, and relationships that may be continued or abandoned in the next phase of life. In the biographical phase of youth, several life tasks need to be performed: education and vocational training, entering a profession, and finding a partner and/or building a family. In addition, leaving parents to find one’s own housing is such a life issue for young adults.

Cross-Milieu Living Requirements: A Youth-Specific, Quality-Price Ratio

Because of broad social changes, the meaning of a young adults’ first personal housing and the way to find it have changed. Young people look for housing that is flexible and can adopt to their specific needs and life styles – not the other way around. They want housing that offers free space for new living forms and rich social contacts in an urban environment. Thus, they seek housing with a youth-specific, quality-price ratio; i.e.affordable urban housing. In other words: young Viennese of all social milieus want inexpensive housing in a lively building in a vibrant city with real-time access to the world.

Model of Multiple Youth’ Passages from Parents’ to Own Housing

The ways of moving from the family home to one’s own housing are also changing. This passage is one of the most important issues in a young person’s life. Today, the pre-planned transition to move into one’s own housing when starting the first job or after marriage is no longer usual and has become only one form among others. Thus, this research project presents a model of the many possible ways for youth to leave their parents and into their own housing. The reasons for these diverse passages have a double nature: first,young people are much more mobile than in the past, but second, in a tight housing market, they have limited available money for housing that fits their actually situation(s). Both issues highlight the need for youth-friendly housing subsidies.

Milieu-Specific Housing Requirements

The specific housing requirements of young Viennese differ according to their expectations shaped by their respective milieu. This is caused by different access to material and educational resources as well as by values and cultural practices. Both resources and cultural preferences influence housing requirements of young Viennese and how they seek their own housing. This study identified four types of housing needs of young adults shaped by their particular milieu.

Housing Requirements in SINUS-Milieus Societal Centre

This type of youth milieus prefers predictable and secure flats. Family orientation plays an important role. Young people learned from their parents to make long-term plans for their housing and lives. Therefore, when studying and training, they already look for family housing and often search for public or cooperative housing. They know relatively well about the subsidised housing system. These young people care about secure housing sensitive to family values. They want housing that provides a self determined, private retreat for social communication with friends and family. They need more space or rooms for work activities at home at various times such as evenings or weekends. These youth have few problems with access to public and co-operative housing. Some have problems with the multi-year waiting times, especially when expecting a child. Young families frequently suffer from space shortages. An additional problem, which also plays a role in other milieus, is the difficult access to subsidised housing for youth coming from other towns who want to return to the home areas after their studies or training.

Housing Requirements in the SINUS-Milieu Hedonists

Young hedonists search for an elementary standard accommodation with a rent of no more than 400 €. They usually have relatively less money and secondary or lower education and thus less scope for organising their life. They face many challenges in their daily life. Unlike other milieus, their limited resources rather than their cultural preferences influence their housing requirements. Important issues are low costs and simple access. They have relatively modest wishes but, like other young adults, they refuse substandard flats. Young hedonists want a refuge from the stress of their often monotonous and physically demanding jobs. However, it also should easily connect them with interesting places to enjoy life with their friends. More than other young adults, hedonists live in the present, they less frequently make long-term plans for their housing, but react to changing conditions. Hence, they, more often than other youth, are confronted with conflicts they have to solve. This includes housing problems associated with pregnancy or ending a partnership or a job. Their behaviour increases their problems of access. When seeking housing, they have the two problems of less money and inadequate social skills. Therefore, those in the hedonist milieu are an important target group in two areas: subsidised housing and advice on gaining access to housing.

Housing Requirements of the SINUS-Milieu Digital Individualists

Digital individualists are the most mobile young adults. Several times a day, they use the internet and are also physically mobile. They want their housing to serve efficiently as network nodes to connect with friends in town, and elsewhere in the world, with leisure, work or education. More than others, their housing serves as a space of aesthetic self-realization and of life-style experiments. Mobility is a central issue in this milieu. They often change housing because of educational opportunities, interest in other places in the world or different friends. Therefore, more often than others, these young adults accept a temporary rent contract, but it must be inexpensive. They often cannot meet Vienna’s criteria for community housing and must search in the expensive private housing sector. For digital individualists, this becomes a special problem when their parents cannot subsidize their housing.

Housing Requirements of the SINUS-Milieu Performer

Young performers have relative good support of their parents. They usually go through a long-term study or training or have just entered their first job. Between these two stages, a large status change takes place that influences their housing requirements. Nevertheless, during their education, despite having more resources than other young adults, young performers also have difficulties with finding inexpensive housing. However, they need a large room and space for meeting friends and, more often than others, seek a flat-sharing community or keep on living in their parents’ flat. Young performers usually focus on the private housing sector. Therefore, they also suffer from high rents. They prefer an aesthetic dwelling with enough space for self-realization and self-presentation. Social communication and aesthetics are their important issues. Performers often work at flexible places including at home. Therefore, they need more space for this purpose.

Distribution of the Described Types of Housing Requirements among 18 to35 Year-olds

Based on this model of Vienna’s youth milieus, one can calculate the share of the described types of housing requirements in the investigated age group of 18 to 35 year-olds. The housing requirement for calculable and secure flats has a share of 33 %, the requirement for elementary standard accommodation has a share of 25%, the requirement for efficient flats has 23%, and the requirement for aesthetic dwelling has 19%. Concerning these shares, focusing on one or more of them is not so much a problem of a given large group, but deciding on political emphasis. Young hedonists need the most support in meeting their needs for elementary flats.

Young people confronted with many difficulties in the housing market

Young adults are confronted with many difficulties in the housing market. The private housing sector has expensive rents. Temporary rent contracts allow the prices to increase repeatedly. Young people want effective regulations to limit rent increases. Another problem is the limited offer of small accommodations. Many young adults have problems to gain access to community housing. Young people wish significantly more community housing in the urban districts they prefer. They criticize long waiting lists and outdated access criteria to community housing, which does not match their needed flexibility in education, job-seeking, modern partnership and mobile life styles. Single parents, young families, students and immigrants from other towns or countries and those with special needs have particular problems.

SMART-Program – Hardly Known among Youth, but Met With Interest

Many young people know the historical performances in community housing and value it as a social integrating activity, but, they do not know about the current SMART-program. After they have been informed about the program, many of the young flat seekers feel attracted especially by the:

• good price-quality ratio
• compact layouts
• modern architecture

Those most interested in SMART-flats are young people from the milieus of the societal centre and young hedonists. They have divided opinions about some special offers such as shared terraces. Young adults have little interest in projects in outlying districts. Young people criticize the access criterion for SMART-flats: two years of living in the same flat in Vienna as a primary tenant. Young adults want new information platforms, such as apps, about communal housing projects for young people that would fit their IT-practices.

Suggestions for emphasising and measuring

Optimization of the SMART-program

• Continue the SMART-program and develop it considering the specific housing requirements for a quality-price-ratio of young adults.
• Carry out a survey with young tenants in SMART-flats, using the results to optimise new SMART-projects.

Develop experimental projects matching housing requirements of specific young groups

• The current form of SMART-project in co-operation with housing co-operatives should be supplemented with experimental projects that include SMART-council flats.
• For example, offer temporary youth flats in the city centre or other locations attractive to young adults.

• Offer temporary studio apartments to artists from 18 to 35 years-old in the city centre.
• Test experimental flats with special mobility or IT equipment.
• Test shared apartments for young adults in community housing.
• New forms of SMART-young-living could be developed by seeking the participation of interested young adults.

Develop youth-specific access criterions to fit their flexible life styles

• Increase the flexibility of the access to specific youth projects, test temporary youth flats in the city.

Initiate a co-operative housing subsidy for students involving the governments of all Austrian provinces

Develop new information platforms about communal projects that fit IT-practices for young adults

• Develop a SMART-App for young flat seekers
• Develop an information format for young flat seekers on Facebook.

Initiate a discussion on regulations and institutions to control rents.