There has been talk of extending crisis emergency reception for asylum seekers and the accommodation of asylum seekers who have received a residence permit, but who are still in reception, the so-called status holders. The consultation will continue next week.
According to the chairman of the Security Council, Hubert Bruls, the presidents of security regions need time to think about what has been asked. The mayor of Nijmegen asks ‘respect for colleagues who still have to consult and calculate’. He wants to prevent municipalities from simply getting the problem on their plate. “It is not our job to keep crisis housing going for months. But we also feel that this is not the time to say: this is not our suit.”
For the umpteenth time, the cabinet is calling on municipalities. According to the ministers involved, they must realize interim provisions as soon as possible for asylum seekers who have heard that they may stay, but who are now in regular asylum reception, waiting for a home. They don’t get it – because the houses aren’t there – but they do get a form of living that is more spacious than a caravan in an asylum seekers’ center. “You do not want crowding out of the already tight housing market,” explained Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing).
The regions and their municipalities have no desire to solve the crisis that The Hague has largely caused itself, the advisory councils recently ruled. “It is a policy problem that the central government should not pass on to the security regions,” said Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema. “As chairman of a security region, I don’t want to put pressure on other municipalities. That puts the relations on edge, while we always work very well together.”
intake
The asylum chain has been stuck for months. There are almost 15,000 status holders in asylum seekers’ centers for which the municipalities have no housing. The asylum seekers’ centers are overflowing due to the increasing number of asylum seekers. This has been causing problems for months, especially at the Ter Apel application centre. In the meantime, the cabinet is unable to do anything about the influx of new asylum seekers.
So it resorts to palliative care. Crisis emergency care was provided in sports halls, hotels and containers. In the coming months, 4 security regions, each for 2 weeks, would provide 150 emergency shelters for asylum seekers. That will probably be expanded to six times 150. The emergency shelter comes on top of the existing reception in asylum seekers centers and is separate from the reception of asylum seekers who are allowed to stay, the so-called status holders, and from the 75,000 reception places for Ukrainian refugees that the municipalities have promised. 285,000 square meters of government real estate is being prepared for occupancy.
Mayor Wouter Kolff of Dordrecht recalled the migration crisis of 2015. “At that time, many municipalities created support for asylum seekers’ centres. They didn’t come then.” Now we have the same problems, said Kolff. “We could have seen this coming seven years ago.”
“This is indeed not a problem that arose from yesterday to today”, acknowledged Minister De Jonge (Wonen) at the start of the Security Council in the provincial house of Utrecht, where about 270 Ukrainian refugees are also being received.
“That means you didn’t solve it overnight either.”