The House of Representatives wants clarification, because making nearly thirty thousand homes available is an unattainable agreement in a tight housing market.
Right to a home
A status holder is an asylum seeker with a residence permit. If an asylum seeker receives a residence permit, he must leave the asylum seekers’ center and go to a home.
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Every year, the cabinet, municipalities and provinces agree on how many houses will be available. This year the agreement was that about 12,000 people would get a home. That was already difficult, but the problem is only getting worse, according to the letter from the cabinet. There is talk of a ‘high target’ and ‘enormous task’.
Because before 2021, 27,000 permit holders must be housed. Reason for the peak: the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) is busy getting rid of previously accumulated backlogs. This is done much faster than municipalities can arrange housing, especially in a tight housing market.
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Years of cuts
“This problem arose because of years of cutbacks at the IND”, says Abdeluheb Choho of the Dutch Council for Refugees. “Many people have been sent away, resulting in enormous backlogs and asylum seekers have had to wait for years for their asylum procedure to start.”
While it is precisely that housing that is so important, he says. “You can only start a life in the Netherlands if you have the peace of a house where you can live in. Only then can you orientate yourself on a job, on the language. And these people really want that, because they are also came to the Netherlands to be free and to build a life. “
According to him, this is not only beneficial for status holders themselves. “If you leave them in an asylum seekers’ center, it often costs society more than if you give them a rental home.”
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‘Everyone has to wait’
But housing so many people is really complicated for many municipalities, says VVD MP Daniel Koerhuis. “People often have to wait a long time for social housing, so it is impossible to explain if status holders are given priority.”
That is why he argues for temporary austere housing for status holders. “We have to house status holders there and from there they can wait for social housing, because after all, everyone has to.”
In any case, the status holders must be helped to find a home. Provinces and municipalities are responsible for this.
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