«Hello, I am from Sri Lanka. I heard that Albinen welcomes new people from other countries. Can you help me to emigrate to Albinen and settle with my family in your beautiful Valais village?”
Nicole Köppel received this message via WhatsApp a few weeks ago. She is mayor of Albinen. The mountain village introduced housing benefit in 2018 and has been supporting anyone who wants to build in Albinen ever since. With amounts of 25,000 francs per person and 10,000 francs per child, the village wants to stop the migration.
Media from all over the world reported about it, but withheld information. The New York Post headlined, “A quaint Swiss village will pay you $25,000 if you move there.” The American tabloid wrote that you had to stay in Albinen for ten years, invest CHF 200,000 and be under 45, but that you didn’t need a Swiss passport or a permanent residence permit.
Media management failed for Köppel. She says: “We still get about a hundred questions a day. Most come from abroad and do not meet the conditions. We have yet to answer them. That’s a lot of work.”
Albinen has 250 inhabitants and is located 1300 meters above sea level. Housing subsidies have caused unrest in the tranquility of the village. That disappoints some. But other than that, was the rent subsidy a success?
Köppel is sitting at the kitchen table, a notepad in front of her on which she has written in pencil: 17 applications approved, 31 adults and 16 children supported, 710,000 francs spent. This is the result after five years.
Actually gratifying, but Köppel is critical: “I don’t know if all foreigners would move to Albinen again. But maybe I’m wrong.”
She herself moved from Aargau to Valais at the age of 27. She says: «From Unterentfelden I was in Bern, Lucerne, Zurich in half an hour. I drive this far from Albinen just to buy an outlet. It’s two worlds.”
The two worlds she refers to – she seems to be between them.
Sometimes she adopts the outside perspective of the woman from Aargau, who explains almost ethnologically why some in the village feel disadvantaged because of the housing subsidies.
She gives an example: Earlier, when cable cars and lifts were planned in the Torrent tourist resort, Albinen did not have enough money to finance their construction, even though the stations would be on their land. Leukerbad took over the costs. Since then, the holiday resort of Leukerbad has become better known than Albinen. That still causes resentment.
Plowing the land but not getting any of the harvest seems to have been repeated for some in the village with the housing subsidies. The purport is that foreigners would benefit directly from it, while the local population has paid taxes all their lives and now has nothing to do with it.
Sometimes Köppel also adopts the rhetoric of those she has just analyzed: “Albinen has no school, no bank, no post office, one last pub, one shop, one bus every hour. You have to anticipate that before you come here and accept it when you get here.”
She herself had a connection to mountain life and knew where she stood. Her father was from Albinen. As a child, she spent summers at her grandparents’ house. It is called “Bergruh”, was built in 1723 and is crooked. Today she lives in it.
Your predecessor was in favor of rent subsidies and advocated for them. He opened the windows in the village and was glad of the fresh breeze, wherever it came from. With his resignation in August 2022, there was less advertising and more skepticism. The windows were closed again.
Before the end of the year, the rent allowance was adjusted in a first meeting. Now you have to live in the village for five years before you can get money from the municipality.
Unlike her predecessor, Köppel was always skeptical: “I was always in favor of keeping the locals here, but against foreigners moving here because of the money.” More and more curious concepts have been submitted recently – retirees looking for young local residents for their building project so they could get the financing.
Yvo Mathieu voted for the amendment in the primary meeting. He grew up in Albinen and runs the last pub in the village. In the Sunnublick he sits at the regular table, with his arms folded and a café crème.
Right behind him is a car corner: red model cars in a display case, books with the title “The most beautiful Ferraris” or “Classic Ferraris”, tin plates with Ferrari or Audi logos.
Mathieu drives an ’86 Audi Quattro – “It wasn’t enough for a Ferrari.” He says, “If you want a car but you don’t have powder, you don’t get a car, that’s it. You have to work and save until you get the money. That’s how everything else should be.”
Mathieu has worked out and earned everything around him: the guest rooms on the top floor of the wooden house in which he lives with his parents, their apartment on the middle floor and the restaurant downstairs that his family has been running since 1966. took over from his parents in 1990 and added a conservatory eight years later. He says: “Every year we had a construction site. We renovated a lot ourselves, we financed everything ourselves.”
Mathieu did not benefit from the rent subsidy, he exceeded the age limit of 45 years by almost ten years. But even if! He thinks luring people into the village with money is a bad idea. “The heart has to be there too, not just the house.”
If it were up to him, the rent allowance could be immediately waived – it counts only those entitled and penalizes everyone else who has paid taxes in the village all their lives. He had proposed cutting taxes “so that everyone can benefit”, but that was not well received by the city council.
And anyway! You rarely see most of the families that have moved here. That’s too bad. He says, “When you come from a foreign country, you have to do something to be accepted.”
This way of thinking is reminiscent of migration debates: there is the majority in society and ‘the others’ have to adapt to it. How do you achieve such an adjustment in Albinen? “By attending events and joining clubs, integrate yourself.”
Mathieu served on the city council for two years and was a member of many clubs: youth club, tourist club, shooting club, ski club. Half is gone. His father was also active in a club. He says: “If everyone was like us, we wouldn’t have any problems. Our family has always been involved in village life.”
In Switzerland, associations are seen as an integral part of civil society. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in 2019, 44 percent of Swiss residents were involved in associations, associations and clubs. Everyone who is a member of a club is considered to belong to this country, to the village, to the community, to the nation.
Silvan Schmutz also knows this principle. He says: “As a newcomer you are affectionately called ‘halbiner’ here for a long time before you really become ‘albiner’.” To achieve that, you “already” have to interact with the locals, attend events and join clubs. “If you don’t show up, they don’t know who you are.”
Dirt grew up in the Pfynwald – the forest that separates Oberwallis from Unterwallis and borders the mountain road to Albinen. He knows some of the locals from school or from the ski club. Since dating local Céline Mathieu, he is also a member of the youth club. She is president of the association.
In this position, Mathieu organizes carnival balls, football tournaments, torchlight descents and is happy with everyone who is there. Yet membership of a club is not a must for her. She says, “You can’t force those who moved here. It’s nice to have them here.”
Mathieu never wanted to leave Albinen. Here she knows everyone and is close to nature. She grew up in a family house next to the soccer field, a bit away from the village. Ponies graze in the garden.
The couple added a second floor to this house in 2021 and created their first apartment there together. Thanks to the housing subsidy, they received CHF 50,000 for it. Mathieu also received an early inheritance from her parents. Thanks to this capital, the two obtained a mortgage from the bank.
The fact that you now have to live in the village for five years before you can receive money from the community is irrelevant to the couple. Dirt says, “You can actually leave it that way. Without money we wouldn’t have built, at least not so quickly. And foreigners probably wouldn’t have come ‘obschi’ in the first place.”
There are hardly any rental properties in Albinen. The youth association that took the initiative at the time wanted to use the rent subsidy to motivate young people to build and stay. They would, so to speak, have to pay back the missing start-up capital through taxes over a period of ten years.
Mathieu says: “The new arrangement feels strange and wrong – like a test you have to pass. But that’s what the majority decided. Out of sheer spite, she no longer sees the added value. The average age in the village has dropped from 55 to 52 and there are more children than in a long time.”
Mathieu has an opinion, but she didn’t voice it during the primary last fall. She wasn’t there, she found out too late – like many housing benefit advocates.
In fact, the documents for the original meeting would have been less extensive and the agenda items less transparent than usual. Who knows.
One thing is clear: Albinen hit the brakes with the adjustment. It remains to be seen how far the new pace will take the village – and whether or not the housing subsidy will remain in jeopardy.
Source: Watson
I am Dawid Malan, a news reporter for 24 Instant News. I specialize in celebrity and entertainment news, writing stories that capture the attention of readers from all walks of life. My work has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications and I am passionate about delivering quality content to my readers.
