Most recently, the tent accommodations for refugees in Feldkirch were dismantled on Wednesday morning. The “Vorarlberger Nachrichten” and the ORF Vorarlberg reported on Wednesday about corresponding plans. The facilities had never been occupied. Other tents stored in the garden of the Dornbirn prison have already been removed. All tents in Austria have now been emptied.
He welcomes the dismantling of the tents, which he agreed to in talks with Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP), said the responsible provincial councilor Christian Gantner (ÖVP). The country is meanwhile continuing to look for additional accommodation options for refugees, both in smaller and larger quarters. This also included containers – “that’s better than tents anyway” – as well as halls. The plan to take in 40 people a week by the end of the year remains valid: “We will continue to fulfill our responsibilities calmly,” says Gantner. Vorarlberg currently only fulfills the quota for taking in refugees by around 72 percent.
Too cold for tent accommodation
In order to make it easier to find accommodation, Gantner announced that an amendment to the building law that was passed in 2015 and expires at the end of 2022 will be extended in the next session of the state parliament. What is new is that it will also apply to containers in the future.
Thomas Fussenegger, spokesman for the Federal Support Agency (BBU), explained that the tents in the BBU’s sphere of influence had been emptied throughout Austria and some had already been demolished because it had simply gotten too cold. The refugees were housed elsewhere. Since the tents in Vorarlberg had not been used before, they had now been dismantled. Vorarlberg has also created new places to accommodate refugees, he assessed the state’s efforts positively.
In Upper Austria, where tents in the municipality of St. Georgen im Attergau made headlines, the accommodations were dismantled in mid-November – the OÖN reported.
Source: Nachrichten
