How do municipalities combat energy poverty? ‘You just have to go for it’

In the drizzle, four energy fixers receive their final instructions. In the early morning they are standing in a parking lot between high 1960s flats in the Zoetermeer district of Palenstein. Here the men, in their blue quilted jacket with ‘Energy savings service’ on it, go door to door today. For advice and to immediately carry out small insulating and energy-saving jobs.

Don’t forget, the coordinator tells his colleagues, to give residents the flyer from the municipality, which states where they can go if they have money problems. “Name that too.” There is a relatively high level of energy poverty in Palenstein: this means that people spend a large part of their income on energy costs.

Where the national government has mainly tackled energy poverty with broad-meshed measures – a price ceiling, higher allowances and benefits – municipalities have the most difficult task: individually tracking down residents who still have money problems. Preferably before those worries turn into problems: unpaid bills and mounting debts.

How municipalities approach this differs greatly, according to a survey. At the request of NRC 44 large and medium-sized municipalities completed a questionnaire about energy poverty and the energy surcharge.

What all municipalities do: call on their residents to seek help with money problems. They do this through door-to-door magazines, social media and flyers in libraries. This strategy has one major drawback: residents must take action themselves. The municipality extends a hand, but the citizen must first see that hand and then grab it.

That is why some municipalities ring the doorbell of all households that, according to statistics, are the most vulnerable. Although not many municipalities say they do this. In addition to Zoetermeer, these include Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Arnhem and Dordrecht.

Water saving shower head

For the Zoetermeer alderman of poverty Bouke Velzen (ChristenUnie-SGP) ringing the doorbell is self-evident. “I would prefer to do that for everyone,” he says in a conversation at city hall. But because that is too expensive, he focuses on the streets with the highest risk of energy poverty, because there are many old houses and low incomes, for example.

There, all residents, regardless of their actual income, receive a letter about the arrival of the energy fixers. They are employed by private companies hired by the municipality. Residents can schedule an appointment themselves. Those who don’t, will still be called.

Gaston Bark (64) only made the appointment yesterday, he tells fixer Damir Memovic in the hall of his drive-in home from the sixties. “Then I saw that you could come by today.” It is one of the first days that the fixers walk in Zoetermeer, and Bark is the only resident who has given permission for a journalist to watch.

In his study, between cupboards full of books, CDs and storage boxes, Bark explains with his hands in his pockets how sustainable his owner-occupied house already is. There is radiator foil behind his heating, energy-efficient LED lamps hang from the ceiling and solar panels have been installed on the roof for “years”. “So I’ve actually come a long way.”

Fixer Memovic can’t be discouraged. “If I may interrupt you. Did you also know that ten minutes of showering costs around 1.20 euros at the current rates?”

“I think that’s a lot of money,” mutters Bark, who later says that he showers every day for health reasons. But, he says: “I’m lucky with an old energy contract. That is fixed until November.”

He has Memovic install a shower timer that beeps after five minutes, and a water-saving shower head. Also, the fixer places a door brush under the door to the hall near the front door.

When Memovic hands over the flyer about money worries, he explains it, but Bark’s financial situation is not discussed. When the fixer leaves after an hour and a half, Bark says, “I thought it was great.”

Memovic can store more energy-saving materials in one house than in another, he says in the car afterwards. But his facts about energy costs always do well. “When I mention the cost of a shower, I sometimes see the eyes widen.”

Own responsibility

The contrast between the approach of Zoetermeer and other municipalities is great. The municipality of Breda points to the personal responsibility of residents with money worries: “It is important that people actively contact the municipality as soon as problems arise.” Alkmaar says: “Residents who are not known or who do not report, we do not get in sight.”

Peter Heijkoop, alderman for poverty in Dordrecht (CDA) and director of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) on this theme, has quite an understanding of municipalities that do not ring the bell of their residents on a large scale. “You can’t do everything at once. But I would like to call on them: do try to go to the people.”

Because it is not realistic, says Heijkoop, to expect all residents to proactively ask for help. “People with low incomes often have many problems at the same time. A poorly insulated house, low literacy. You just have to approach that group.”

Municipalities that do not ‘go to it’ will not reach all residents with money problems, says Anna Custers, lecturer in poverty interventions at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. However, she understands that some municipalities do not opt ​​for this. It’s an expensive approach, she says. “I can imagine that you first want to know more about the added value. How many additional doors will open? How much does their energy consumption decrease? How many payment problems will this prevent?” Pioneers such as Zoetermeer could collect and share such information, says Custers, “so that not all municipalities have to reinvent the wheel.”

The differences between municipalities turn out to be much smaller if you ask them about the popularity of the energy surcharge: the 1,300 euros they were allowed to distribute to the lowest incomes last year, and again this year. The government is allocating 1.4 billion euros twice for this.

Households with an income of no more than 20 percent above the social assistance level are entitled to this energy allowance. People who already know the municipality, for example because they are on social assistance, will automatically receive the allowance. The rest must apply for it.

The survey among municipalities shows how popular the energy surcharge is. Almost all municipalities had already granted the allowance for 2022 in November to around 90 percent of households who, based on CBS figures, are probably entitled to it.

The reach of other income schemes is often lower. For example, about one in three beneficiaries do not make use of social assistance, according to research by the Labor Inspectorate. The success of the energy surcharge can be easily explained, thinks Anna Custers. “It is a substantial amount, the conditions are flexible and it has received a lot of national attention.”

Many municipalities allow more residents to qualify than the cabinet had in mind. More than half have opted for a higher income limit, at their own expense. Then households up to 30 or 40 percent above social assistance level may also apply for it. In Utrecht and Venlo even up to 50 percent above that.

That also leads to complaints, says Zoetermeer alderman Bouke Velzen. “Then people call: ‘My mother will get it in neighboring municipality X, and I will not get it here.’ Velzen understands those complaints. Arjan Vliegenthart [directeur van budgetinstituut Nibud] managed to say aptly: it is a reverse postcode lottery.”

Alderman Heijkoop from Dordrecht thought that comment was “a bit lame”. Yes, some municipalities do a little extra. “But that is then decided by the city council: that is how local democracy works.”

Overburdened officials

The real problem? The energy surcharge should never have reached the municipalities, according to both aldermen. “It is a national scheme that has been pushed into a municipal fund,” says Velzen.

The Tax and Customs Administration is the most logical executor of income schemes, Heijkoop believes. But the Tax and Customs Administration already announced last year that it could not handle an extra scheme. As VNG director, the Dordrecht alderman sees that just about all national implementing bodies are overloaded. And because of that, he says, national crises can be solved by municipalities. “Homelessness, asylum, the consequences of inflation.”

As a result, municipalities are now also overloaded. “Our people who are busy with poverty are really walking on their gums,” says Velzen. And that has consequences: those applying for social assistance benefits in Zoetermeer sometimes have to wait longer for the decision. And as alderman, Bouke Velzen must accept that his ambition from the local coalition agreement, a new poverty policy, will be delayed.

These civil servants have already had several temporary arrangements on their plate in the past three years: the corona subsidies for the self-employed (TOZO) and for households in financial distress (TONK), the payment of living allowance to Ukrainians, and now the energy surcharge.

Paste plasters

The high energy prices make the target group of the poverty policy more unclear. Municipalities were used to looking mainly at people’s incomes. Now Bouke Velzen sees people with low incomes in well-insulated homes in his city: they often get money back on their energy bills. While lower middle incomes in draughty owner-occupied houses get into trouble.

Nevertheless, many poverty aldermen believe that national politics should structurally increase minimum incomes. Because, on average, the blow to purchasing power hits them the hardest. Now people are temporarily helped by the energy ceiling, says Heijkoop. “But if that falls away next year, you will get apocalyptic figures again.”

And then municipalities can do little else, says Velzen, than to stick plasters. Municipalities can help poor households by reimbursing urgent costs, for example if the washing machine breaks down. But the House of Representatives is responsible for preventing poverty through income policy.

According to Heijkoop, it is inevitable that the subsistence level in the Netherlands will have to be raised further: social assistance, the minimum wage. And he finds the National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen on his side. “The government is no longer able to give people the basics,” he recently said in NRC.

According to Van Zutphen, it is a shame that municipalities have to devote so much “people, attention and money” to keeping the lowest incomes afloat.

In the meantime, as alderman, Velzen is called to account for the poverty in his city, he says. “What are you going to do about it?” Frustrating, he thinks. “I just want the system to be in order. So that I am only needed in very exceptional situations.”