Next Tuesday, the first 50 status holders will arrive in the former Willem II prison in Tilburg. The dots are still being put on the i to ensure that everything is ready on time. In total there is room for 200 status holders. Omroep Brabant was already given a tour of the site.
“The extraction system here still has to be connected,” says Elly van Hombergh, the location manager of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), as she walks through the still empty corridors of one of the two buildings.
In another part of the building, locks are still being replaced, cleaned and washing machines are still being connected. When asked whether she is going to get everything on time, she is very clear: “We have to, the status holders come and then everything just has to be ready”.
The municipality of Tilburg announced in October that it would receive 200 status holders at the former barracks site on the Ringbaan Zuid. Status holders are people who have come to the Netherlands as asylum seekers and who have received a residence permit.
The Koning Willem II barracks used to be a Penitentiary Institution, a prison. It was closed in 2017 and since then the building has been used for police and military exercises. The old part of the barracks has since been demolished. Until November of this year, the site will be used to accommodate status holders.
cubicle around the toilet
Van Hombergh shows what a room for two status holders will look like. “A bunk bed, a small table, some cupboards and a fridge.” In addition, there is also a toilet and sink in the room, with a cubicle around it. That’s new: when it was still a prison, that cubicle didn’t exist. “Then you would be alone here. Now that you are here with the two of you, sometimes also strangers to each other, it is nice that you have some privacy.”
In addition, only people who speak the same language come together in the room. “You have to understand each other if you live at 2 by 4 meters, otherwise there is no start”.