News item | 08-06-2023 | 13:11
More homes are needed for people in a vulnerable position. It concerns homeless people, people who come from a mental health institution, who are status holders or people with a social or medical urgency. In addition to housing, they often also need extra care and guidance. This is stated in the progress report A home for everyone, which Minister Hugo de Jonge for Housing and Spatial Planning sent to the House of Representatives today. More suitable accommodation is also needed for people with specific housing needs, such as students, migrant workers and caravan dwellers.
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“Especially people who need extra care and attention or people with specific housing needs find it difficult to find accommodation. That is why we have been able to agree in the housing deals – which have been concluded throughout the Netherlands – that more social housing is needed. We want to realize a total of 290,000 social rental homes up to and including 2030, which is 40,000 more than intended. At a time when there is an enormous shortage of housing, we must keep an eye on the most vulnerable people in our society, ”says Minister Hugo de Jonge.
More social housing
Up to and including 2030, more than 900,000 additional homes will be needed in the Netherlands. More than 290,000 homes have been reserved for social rent in the housing deals recently concluded for this purpose. That is 40,000 more than intended. Based on these agreements, governments, corporations and care organizations can work together to provide housing for people who urgently need forms of housing adapted to care and supervision.
Bill to strengthen management of public housing
The legislative proposal to strengthen the management of public housing includes the measures and goals from the A home for everyone programme. For example, municipalities are obliged to include an urgency regulation in the housing ordinance for a number of mandatory urgency categories. From 2026, municipalities must also include a residential care vision in their public housing program and involve relevant care parties in drawing up local performance agreements, in addition to housing corporations and tenant organisations. The entry into force of the law is foreseen in 2024.
Six front-runner regions get to work energetically
Leading regions of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area, Parkstad Limburg, the Haaglanden region, the Arnhem-Nijmegen Green Metropolitan Region, the province of Groningen and the Enschede region are hard at work drawing up regionally coordinated residential care visions. This includes the housing and care needs and housing tasks for special needs groups and the elderly. They form the basis for agreements between municipalities and between municipalities, housing associations, landlords, healthcare providers and other parties that are important in the housing of their vulnerable residents. The agreements made in the housing deals lay the foundation for further elaboration of the regional residential care visions.
More support
The housing task of people who need more care and attention is important and complex. To support municipalities, provinces, housing corporations, care and social organizations, the program A Home for Everyone offers help. We are currently working on setting up a single central desk where people can go with housing questions about special needs groups and the elderly. An online knowledge and expertise center was launched last year, including relevant information about laws and regulations, financial regulations, practical guidelines and practical examples. The Expert Team Housing Attention Groups started at the beginning of this year to support municipalities and regions in drawing up and implementing regional residential care visions.
The program A home for everyone is a joint program of 5 ministries (BZK, VWS, JenV, SZW and OCW) and VNG, Aedes and the Interprovincial Consultation (IPO).