Eindhoven wants to receive 400 asylum seekers and status holders as quickly as possible. The municipality announced this on Monday evening. The location of the shelter is not yet known. Due to the decision, the temporary accommodation on Kanaaldijk-Zuid will remain open longer until a permanent location has been found.
The municipality of Eindhoven expects a request from The Hague to receive more asylum seekers soon. This request is now being anticipated. The municipal council says it ‘sees the shelter as its moral and social duty.’ The municipality hopes to eventually accommodate the four hundred asylum seekers and status holders at a maximum of two locations. She initially planned to accommodate 250 people, but given the increased need, that is no longer enough, Mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem explained. He speaks of a ‘first good step’. Together with regional municipalities, work is now being done on a broader plan.
Flexible use of reception places
For the provisional reception, Eindhoven will use flexibly deployable reception places. For example, they can also be used to house other people, such as students. This is possible, for example, if the number of asylum seekers decreases again.
Eindhoven is already temporarily receiving 96 asylum seekers at the Kanaaldijk-Zuid. Five residential units are being used for this shelter, which have been placed on the old environmental street. Twenty people can be accommodated in each unit. The temporary agreement expires at the end of December.
It now appears that the temporary shelter will remain open longer. The municipality has discussed this with representatives of entrepreneurs and local residents. A letter has also been distributed door-to-door in the neighbourhood.
Entrepreneurs at the Eindhoven business park De Kade were angry earlier this year when it became known that the winter emergency shelter for the homeless would become a temporary shelter for asylum seekers. “The municipality had promised that the residential units would be removed if the winter shelter closed in April,” said Bjorn Seringen of the employers’ association at the time. “Now we hear that asylum seekers are coming. That was not the deal.”
‘Good cooperation with COA and local residents’
According to alderman Samir Toub, months later, things are going ‘very well at and around this location’. According to him, this is due to good cooperation between COA and local residents. “I hope this represents the way things will be in and around the new shelter.”
Dijsselbloem is also confident. According to him, there was and still is broad acceptance in the city. The mayor is also counting on the government not only literally contributing. He would like the laws and regulations to enable rapid integration: “If it is up to us, asylum seekers and status holders will immediately learn the Dutch language and children will go to school immediately. In short: integration and participation from day one – including paid work. We therefore make an emphatic appeal to The Hague to make this possible and not to raise all kinds of bureaucratic problems or political objections. We have learned that from the reception of refugees from Ukraine: the sooner you get to work, the better it is for everyone. All the more so as we also need extra workers in our region.”
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