Now that the number of homeless people has more than doubled in the past ten years, the Netherlands must structurally change its approach to homelessness. This is stated in a new independent advice from the Council for Health and Society that will be presented to State Secretary Paul Blokhuis (Public Health, Welfare and Sport) on Tuesday. According to the council, current regulations are pushing people further into the problems.
In 2019, the number of homeless people in the Netherlands has more than doubled since 2009, from more than 17,000 to nearly 40,000, according to recent figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). The increase is particularly strong among young people and non-Western migrants.
Since the outbreak of the banking crisis in 2008, the group of homeless people has become increasingly diverse, the Council for Public Health and Society notes in the new advice. This concerns, for example, people who are going through a divorce, lose their job or end up on the street after discharge from an institution without proper aftercare.
“These people may be doing relatively well in the first place, but the loss of a house causes problems to mount quickly. Rules intended to help them actually push them out like a centrifuge”, says chairman of the council and former politician Jet Bussemaker in conversation with NU.nl.
Deploying the right to housing
“What we are seeing now is that, for example, you cannot apply for income support without a home or address. But you are also not entitled to social assistance if you cannot prove that you are not self-reliant,” says Bussemaker, who emphasizes that it is often too is late.
Even if you want to temporarily register with a friend or acquaintance, this can have all kinds of unpleasant financial consequences, for example for the homeowner’s mortgage. The Council therefore believes that the government and municipalities should use the statutory right to housing.
Not just handing out houses
The right to housing has so far hardly been used, but it can give the government and the municipality the space to relax rules, says Bussemaker. She cites temporary shelter in holiday homes, empty office buildings or with friends or acquaintances as examples.
“We say: use the right to housing as a crowbar,” says Bussemaker. “That does not mean that a house should just be handed out by the government. But at least make sure there is temporary shelter when people lose their house. If holiday homes are a first step, we have to accept that.”
Although the advice of the council was planned long before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the corona crisis is very worrying for Bussemaker. “By far the majority of people who become homeless, we see a longer period of uncertainty in terms of jobs, relationships, and those ingredients can easily lead to more homelessness.”
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