In Heerlen-Noord everyone could find an affordable home. But then the sense of community was lost

From the house of her aunt in Groningen, where she lived temporarily, Nella Windster (28) wrote to an online at home in Limburg (Til) at the beginning of 2020. With this, the Windster, born in Curaçao, gained access to the range of almost all Limburg housing associations in one go. It is a tip that she has been around for years within her circle of acquaintances: Need an affordable home quickly? Try it in Limburg!

Five months later, Windster moved to a two-room apartment in Heerlen-Noord. At the municipality she approached a social assistance benefit, because she did not have an income. “The civil servant continued to ask what I came to do from Groningen in Heerlen,” Windster recalls. “Well, I urgently needed a house for my daughter. We couldn’t stay with my aunt and in Curaçao a rental home would take up to twenty years.”

Due to the housing shortage, thousands of mostly poor people move to Heerlen-Noord (more than 55,000 inhabitants) every year. This is one of the few places where they can find affordable housing. At the same time, residents with a little more money are pulling away due to the one -sided housing supply.

Spoke for a few months NRC With new and old residents, politicians, volunteers, care providers, housing associations and schools. Heerlen-Noord, they sketch, has become an anonymous transit house that is difficult to redecorate. In school classes, new students always bring new learning arrears. Close neighborhoods see ‘their’ young people are forced to leave.

Politicians in Heerlen are now raising the alarm. The Commission wants permission as quickly as possible to better regulate the influx of vulnerable newcomers, so that the area gets the chance to restore the balance.

Coal mine

Heerlen-Noord is not a small enclave in a further prosperous city-almost three-quarters (69 percent) of the Heerlen households lives here. The area above the track fell into disrepair after the closure of the last coal mine in 1974. Life expectancy is six years shorter than the Dutch average. A striking number of residents suffer from problems such as debts, poverty, poor health, insecurity and unemployment. The houses are mostly small and poorly maintained. But also cheap, and therefore attractive for people with little budget.

To improve the quality of life in the area, Heerlen has been receiving extra money in the context of the National Program for Liveability and Safety. An important part goes to future generations: the children of the children who are now born in Heerlen-Noord, is the promise, must have as many opportunities in twenty-five years as children in other places in the Netherlands.

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To achieve this, families-the ‘new’ and the ‘old’-must continue to live in Heerlen-Noord and form a close-knit community, while the municipality provides good education, better houses, work and more safety. Only, families don’t stay. Figures from the National Program show that in the last ten years 32,000 people from outside the municipality settled in Heerlen-Noord, while almost as many residents left. “It takes a village to raise a child”, Says Ron Meyer, program director of the National Program Heerlen-Noord and former SP chairman.” But if so few people live in this area for a longer period of time, which village are you still talking about? ”

Paulus school

Nowhere are the consequences of the rapid passage more visible than at Paulus primary school in the Heerlerheide-Passart district. More than 40 percent of the 126 students here have an educational delay, compared to 43 percent for Heerlen-Noord and 8 percent on average in the Netherlands. “Many children speak little or no Dutch at home,” says Patty van ‘t Hoofd. That is why, for example, the teachers read extra for extra. In the afternoon the school doors remain open longer for activities such as dancing, music lessons and tutoring.

One day a larger family lands in the neighborhood, then suddenly four classes get a newcomer

“We always coordinate our education as well as possible to the level of the students,” says Van ‘t Hoofd. “One day a larger family land in the neighborhood, then four classes suddenly get a newcomer. The group with which you start is never actually the one with which you end up.”

The school is close to Oude Passart, a characteristic former mine colony. The dark bricks of the small miners’ houses contrast with the, later added, light -colored front doors. Until recently, the inhabitants formed a close -knit community, they say for themselves, in which they did messages for each other and matched each other’s children. On this Saturday in June a group of residents are on folding chairs on the sidewalk. They chat while they keep an eye on the children playing on the large square.

One of the residents is former author restorer Franco Piras (65), son of a now deceased miner from Sardinia. He was born and raised here and, he says, would not want to live anywhere else in the world. His mother (88) still lives in his birthplace across the street, his children live around the corner.

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Until recently, the barn in the garden of Piras was the headquarters of the lively volunteer network in the area, driven by him and his wife Janine (59). “Flea markets, Easter, Sinterklaas, the whole neighborhood was always going on here,” says Piras, rolling a shagje. “Young and old. In the fall we ran out the pumpkins with which we decorated the entire neighborhood.”

Janine Piras is still doing volunteer work, but now a neighborhood further – the volunteers from Oude Passart has taken them. “If I could lift my house and put it somewhere else, I would do that now.”

The residents tell about the many new neighbors. About the waste on the street. About a neighbor who got very angry when they asked him if he wanted to put the car away in connection with a flea market.

Franco always immediately approaches newcomers. “I want to ask them why they are here, and if I can help them. I have nothing against those people and I also understand that they come to live here if they don’t like a house elsewhere. But I don’t like it, because those people don’t want to live here at all.”

Housing

There are worries about the young generation – will they succeed in finding a home in the neighborhood? The housing shortage is also rising in Heerlen. Everyone knows a family with adult children living. Sometimes, after a divorce, including grandchildren. Parents are forced to sleep on the bank or in the attic.

Our children must have a house, preferably in the area, but are told that they are not urgent

“Our children are depressed or turning,” says local resident Ron van der Vecht (63) who has an adult ‘bonus son’ at home who is looking for a home. “They just have to have a house, preferably in the neighborhood, but are told that they are not urgent. And then we see all those Dutch people coming here,” he refers to the newcomers. “We don’t understand that.”

Jeremy Thelen (22) likes to continue to live in Oude Passart, the neighborhood where he grew up and where he knows so many people. At the moment Thelen still lives with his mother, but he urgently is looking for his own house nearby. Soon his girlfriend will give birth to their first child. “I have been registered at home in Limburg since I am eighteen, but can’t find anything,” he says.

Thelen and his girlfriend both work at a waste processing company and they at Kruidvat-and would like to raise their child in Heerlen-Noord. With this they form a target group that the municipality says to cherish, but cannot give priority over a social rental home.

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Rotterdam Act

“Crucial!”, The Heerlen alderman Casper Gelderblom (Housing, PvdA, GroenLinks, Party for the Animals) shouts to the question of how important he thinks it is that Thelen and his partner can continue to live in Oude Passart. “For the health of a community, it is essential that people with dedication to a neighborhood can also go there. It is precisely there that we are currently writing a lot of policies. Children from our own communities now often have to live elsewhere, we no longer want that.”

From 2026, the Municipal Executive hopes to be able to appeal to the Special Measures for the metropolitan problems (WBMGP), also known as the ‘Rotterdam Act’. With that, it wants to regulate the influx in 19 of the 57 Heerlen neighborhoods more stricter for everyone from outside the Parkstad region.

We also want to get some of the people who are now working in Heerlen but do not live there to get to the municipality

With the ‘Rotterdam Act’ the red carpet goes out for anyone who, according to the municipality of Heerlen, can make ‘healthier and stronger’. People who have been living or working in Heerlen for at least six years get a big line in the housing allocation. This applies, among other things, to people with a ‘crucial profession’ – for example in healthcare or education – or other sectors where there is great need for staff.

“We also want to get some of the people who now work in Heerlen but do not live there to the municipality,” says Gelderblom. “For example, employees of Statistics Agency CBS or from Pensioenfonds ABP. They can often not find a suitable home in Heerlen.”

New construction

The municipality wants to build thousands of new homes in the coming years, also in the middle and higher segment. Part of the outdated corporation stock will be replaced. “On average, we retain 36 percent social rental homes, just like now,” says Gelderblom. “But more balanced spread throughout the city. Yes, also in residential neighborhoods, why not?”

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The ‘Rotterdam Act’ also regulates which newcomers are no longer welcome for the time being: people without income from work, or who in the past caused housing nuisance. The neighborhoods where they will probably no longer be able to settle, are mainly in Heerlen-Noord.

According to Meyer, Heerlen does everything you can do locally, but that is not enough. He himself is in favor of a ‘Netherlands Act’, who forces each municipality to ensure sufficient social rental homes. “But as long as it is not there, we apply the instruments that we can apply.”

Meyer himself grew up in a social assistance family in Heerlen-Noord and newcomers does not blame anything. “I think it is unacceptable that these people are now being repressed from richer municipalities. Often it is a separate single mother with children who is poor and has debts. She does not understand anything of us, does not even understand us, so to speak, does not know the way here, has no network and is therefore longer than necessary in social assistance.” Of the eleven hundred people who apply for assistance in Heerlen annually, according to Meyer, one third from outside Limburg comes.

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After five years, Nella Windster still likes to live in Heerlen-Noord, together with her now six-year-old daughter and son of three. “Most people are nice to me. It’s quiet here, I can let my children play outside.” For more than two years she searched in vain for an affordable three -room home in Heerlen, in the same neighborhood. She may soon be leaving for another municipality.

“We received good news yesterday,” says a beaming Jeremy Thelen in his mother’s house in Oude Passart, when NRC returns on a Saturday in August. “We will receive a single -family home with a garden in Voerendaal, next week we will receive the keys.” On his forearm is in large letters Latschaana, the name of his born daughter at the end of July. In the small living room she sleeps in a baby seat, while the young parents look at her.

“I would rather have stayed in Heerlen, close to my mother,” says Thelen. “But it must be good for our child now.”

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