When Pieter Paul Slikker, councilor for Care and Housing in Den Bosch, visited the homeless shelter three years ago, he was quite shocked. He saw, says Slikker, a “completely run-down building, yellowed walls with holes in them, plasterwork with damp spots, dirty old beds and sanitary facilities, well, which you don’t encounter at the worst campsite in France in the high season.”
He asked the shelter director, Thijs Honig, who “on earth” owned that building. “Yours,” he said.
That same year, 2022, the municipality of Den Bosch decided to radically change its approach to homelessness. Last Thursday, Slikker and Honig, now a former shelter director, talked about it at the conference ‘Homeless in the Netherlands’.
The new approach was called ‘Living First’. Larger shelters were renovated. The old so-called “”, with 77 places, disappeared. In their place were 55 small-scale shelters, ‘intermediate facilities’. These are houses, studios and apartments where homeless people can stay temporarily while waiting for their own home.
Housing is the core of the new approach, which is based on the American Housing First concept. The idea is to provide suitable housing facilities as quickly as possible to people without complex problems. And no more “accommodating people endlessly.”
It works, says Slikker in a telephone explanation after the conference. There are now, he says, five hundred homeless people in Den Bosch, two hundred of whom have housing through the program. The time that homeless people spend in shelters was reduced from thirteen to less than three months (). Not all two hundred people were already in shelter – some were still bridging their homeless period with friends or family.
‘Housing first’ is especially necessary during the housing crisis. Otherwise, the group would have found a home themselves
In 2022, the central government resolved to ban homelessness from the Netherlands by 2030. Even then the motto was: live first. “Housing will be the core of the new approach,” the government wrote to the House of Representatives at the time, and ‘experts by experience’ would have a major role in reducing homelessness. 65 million euros per year were allocated.
Three years later, Den Bosch is one of the few municipalities where the approach has been fully implemented, although the same approach has also been announced or initiated in several other places. For example, this year all announced municipalities takes a similar approach in South Kennemerland, Haarlemmermeer and the IJmond. In Utrecht, an initiative proposal was made to focus on ‘living first’ accepted.
Yet Slikker notices that many administrators are hesitant due to the housing crisis, he says. “I think that is one of the great misconceptions,” he says. “Because ‘housing first’ is especially necessary during the housing crisis. Otherwise, that group would have found a home themselves.” According to Slikker, it has not become apparent that more housing is structurally needed in Den Bosch.
Rent arrears and nuisance
In 2023, researchers from Utrecht University of Applied Sciences and the Kansfonds Foundation conducted a first count of homelessness in twelve Dutch municipalities. This showed that many homeless people do not fit the standard image of the confused, addicted, nuisance man on the street. Homelessness, it turned out, affects men, women, and young children and was a much bigger problem than previously estimated. At the last count, this year, almost 30,000 homeless people were ‘found’ in 57 municipalities, and it once again showed that homelessness affects a broad group.
Slikker: “You should actually not be happy with the results of that count, of course, because the results are extremely painful. But at the time it did convince people who had doubts about our approach.”
Those doubters were there in Den Bosch. Municipal councilors, housing associations and administrators in surrounding regions were sceptical. For example, corporations were concerned about rent arrears and nuisance. These turned out to be unfounded, says Slikker. “There are no more rent arrears than average. We have had one report of nuisance.”
Center for Dental Care stands in front of a homeless shelter in Den Bosch.
Merlin Daleman
According to Slikker, concerns about a “pulling effect” that the approach would have on homeless people have also proven to be unfounded. “There is hardly any. The scheme is only intended for . A number of people have tried, but we have helped them on the right path in their own region.”
Thanks to the new system, Den Bosch has , says Slikker. Yet there are people who do not qualify for the program and find it difficult to help. Homeless migrant workers, for example, who receive housing through their work, but quickly lose their job and therefore also lose their home.
I shout at the government: change our financing. Reduce the amount for shelter and provide extra money so that we can provide housing
Last week, outgoing Minister of Social Affairs and Employment Mariëlle Paul (VVD) canceled a plan to ban contracts under which workers could quickly become homeless if they lost their jobs. Slikker: “As a migrant worker, you work today in Bergen op Zoom, tomorrow in Antwerp, the day after tomorrow in Rotterdam. What happens if you lose your job and housing, how do you arrange that together? You should not organize that on the scale of municipalities.”
“Resolving homelessness is the responsibility of councilors who have care in their portfolio,” says Slikker, “Just like the State Secretary for Health at state level. That is strange, most people need a home above all. I have also been calling on the government for three years: change our financing. Reduce the amount for shelter, and provide extra money so that we can offer housing. Then municipalities that have doubts about ‘housing first’ will certainly step up their game.”
Slikker hopes that more municipalities will start working on ‘housing first’, he says: “You don’t need the government. Small-scale shelter and facilities do not have to be the drain of the drain, but a place aimed at recovery.”
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