Laura
Resurrecting an ancient thread, but couldn't hold back.
Totally different systems.
In Austria, anyone making below a certain threshold (and that is high enough, I've just had our rental agreement in my hands by accident, it was 30 years ago around over €50000 income after taxes) can get social housing.
("social housing" is a bit a misnomer, it covers here anything from city/village provides social flats to non-profit housing associations that are common, and that often provide flats at a level that many English speakers associate with luxury accommodations.)
And if you start to earn more while you live there, you are not expected to move out. (E.g. we had cases with known multi-millionaires who kept their starter flat in city housing rented for decades, as a convenient, cheap and anonymous place to stay in the city.)
That's explicitly decided political policy, to keep ghettos from forming. (Which does not work completely, but much more so, than in most English speaking countries, our ministers and heads of government generally do not live in gated communities, the police literally has to camp out on the street as their protection detail.)
