‘Proud is not the right word’, says Dennis de Vries. ‘But it’s really nice that we did this. We’ve stuck our necks out. Look at the situation in Ter Apel, where hundreds of people sleep outside. I find that so distressing. We take the pressure off a little bit.’
It should be clear, the Utrecht alderman for housing is still firmly behind the unorthodox plan that the municipality presented in mid-July, the plan to allocate all vacant social housing units to status holders for six weeks this summer. Especially now that it appears to have worked.
On Friday, Utrecht announced that in the first three weeks of the ‘accelerating action’, 279 status holders have been housed in 148 homes. The municipality expects to be able to link the remaining target of 145 people to homes that are now available in the coming weeks. From Monday 29 August, social housing will be allocated again according to the regular procedure.
Smart Negotiation
It was not immediately obvious that the operation would be a success. Initially there was a lot of commotion. Uproar on social media, tens, hundreds of angry citizens called the municipality, De Vries received death threats. Because wasn’t this at the expense of other home seekers, who had been on the waiting list for years?
Nevertheless, Utrecht persevered. At the end of June, the cabinet made an urgent appeal to all municipalities to find housing more quickly this year for 7,500 status holders who were already linked to them. Due to a shortage of suitable social housing, Utrecht was already behind the times at that time. It was time to catch up. ‘Radical times call for radical solutions’, said De Vries last month de Volkskrant.
‘I understand the anger’, says the alderman for housing now. The media created the impression that Utrecht was very easy to give away these homes to status holders. ‘That’s not the whole story. We are simply performing a legal duty. Moreover, we have accelerated this on the condition that we can build a few thousand temporary houses in the coming years with government support. The chance of finding a home in Utrecht is only increasing. You have to negotiate smartly.’
Time pressure
Logistically, the acceleration action was not even that complicated, say those involved. First, the four housing associations drew up a joint list of the homes that would become available in the short term. They placed this next to a list with the names of status holders who were assigned to Utrecht and the corresponding family size.
Once matched, status holders could sign their contract at the Refugee Work office and then immediately have the first conversations with volunteers who would guide them through the first steps in their new life. ‘That was new’, says Elsbeth van Wijk of housing corporation Mitros. ‘And it’s good. Maybe we’ll keep doing that.’
In the meantime, time pressure has led to creative solutions, says Alderman De Vries. ‘It is always difficult to find enough housing for people alone. But now we had to come up with something. We look at housing sharing, where single status holders who can and want to live together are given a house together. We wouldn’t have done that soon otherwise.’
A bit of a scare
For Vluchtelingenwerk it was ‘a bit of a shock’ that the entire waiting list in Utrecht had to be eliminated in six weeks, says team leader Monique Korpershoek. ‘It gave us a lot of work. Fortunately, we are used to something.’
Refugee Work assists status holders when they are assigned their first home. They offer help with applying for a DigiD, taking out insurance, finding a school for the children, learning the language and sometimes also with the first contact with the neighbours. ‘We have an appointment with them once or twice a week for the first three months.’
That now becomes a puzzle. After all, with this acceleration campaign, the Utrecht department gained almost five hundred new clients in just a few weeks. ‘A doubling’, says Korpershoek. “So we need more people. We are still looking for twenty to thirty new volunteers.’
Negative sentiments
And was there still a lot of unrest after those first hectic days? One social rental home that was waiting for new residents has been defaced in recent weeks, a spokesperson for the municipality says, although it is not even sure whether this had to do with the acceleration action. The police are not aware of any incidents involving the accelerated allocation of homes to status holders.
Nor did they hear any loud protests at the office of housing corporation Mitros, says Elsbeth van Wijk. ‘Although the colleagues who visit the neighborhoods have been called to account. And especially by people who are in trouble themselves. They wonder whether their children will still be able to buy a house.’
Alderman De Vries is meanwhile receiving questions of a different order. ‘I spoke to a manager from another municipality last week. He wanted to know how we had handled it. Elsewhere, they also wonder if they shouldn’t do something like this. I wish those cities the courage to take such a risk.’