‘Vienna waltz’ for lefty NY junket pols

Touring Karl Marx Hof, an enormous public housing complex where you can live if you apply and make less than 3K a month.

A group of democratic socialists and other far-left pols have spent much of the past week on an expenses-paid trip to Vienna as progressives push so-called “social housing” statewide.

State Sen. Julia Salazar, fellow Brooklyn-based socialist Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher and five other state legislators were among a nearly 50-member group — including New York housing organizers and other activists — who landed in Austria Monday to learn more about the country’s heavily subsidized social housing program that serves people of all incomes.

The group visited the Karl Marx and other housing complexes, met with Vienna’s Chamber of Labor, dined with private labor leaders, gushed over “single-lane roads” that limit car use, and checked out 50-cent public toilets, according to Gallagher’s tweets.

“Touring Karl Marx Hof, an enormous public housing complex where you can live if you apply and make less than 3K a month,” Gallagher tweeted Monday. “The lease is — permanent — no matter if your [sic] income, and you can switch units. Kindergarten, library, bike storage, parking and gardens included #WhenInWien.”

While many of the pols arrived home as early as Friday, Gallagher was expected to head back to New York on Tuesday, her reps said.

The trip’s expenses — including airfare and accommodations — are being picked up by various foundations and other private donors. It was organized by several left-leaning policy groups, including Housing Justice for All, The Action Lab and New York University’s Urban Democracy Lab, according to some who attended.

They declined to say which donors and foundations picked up the tab for the seven pols or what it cost.

The cheapest round-trip flights from New York to Vienna were running about $700 on Friday, according to Skyscanner.com. Fourstar, one-bed hotel rooms in Vienna could be had for $87 to $274 per night, according to Hotels.com.

During her stay, Salazar raised eyebrows back in the States by suggesting she’d be all in on having the government seize private property in New York City to spur social housing.

“Expropriate them and allow community land trusts to acquire the properties to actually house people,” tweeted Salazar Wednesday.

She was responding to a report in The City suggesting Big Apple landlords are purposely holding tens of thousands of rent-stabilized units for “ransom” by leaving them vacant to help manipulate changes to rent laws.

Other pols who visited Vienna included Sen. Brian Kavanagh of Manhattan and state Assembly members Marcela Mitaynes and Phara Souffrant Forrest of Brooklyn, Linda Rosenthal of Manhattan and Anna Kelles, who represents the Ithaca area.

The lefties’ trip spurred plenty of reaction on social media. Some applauded them for seeking alternatives to America’s flawed public housing system. Other questioned their motives — and financing.

“Who is paying for this junket? Hope it isn’t my fellow New York taxpayers! And if not who is paying for this glorification of Communism . . . Karl Marx,” tweeted @DickYoungsGhost.

“So what’s the plan Gallagher when you come home from this bulls--t junket?” another critic, @ImpunityCity, tweeted. “You think the developers that own you and your fauxgressive ally electeds are going to build housing like this without topping it off with 50 floors of condos? And enough of the bike bulls--t narrative.”

Cea Weaver of Housing Justice for All defended the trip in a text message from Vienna on Friday. She said it was arranged to introduce legislators to Vienna’s “social housing model, which has earned global praise for providing safe, decent, and affordable housing for nearly a million tenants.”