From Monday, around 300 asylum seekers will be accommodated in the Van der Valk Hotel in Uden. Recently, the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) has been working hard to convert the hotel. This is what it looks like on the inside.
It is still exciting whether the shelter can actually open. Last week, a group of local residents went to court. They disagree with how the municipality of Maashorst made the decision and that there is no possibility to object. Until this is properly arranged, they have asked the judge that no asylum seekers are allowed to come. The judge will make his ruling on Friday.
“Yes, tomorrow is an exciting day,” says manager Hamsi Suleyman of the asylum shelter. “We hope for a positive statement for us. If that is not the case, then that is very annoying. We really need the beds.”
Bunk beds
Suleyman shows how COA has converted the hotel into an asylum shelter in recent weeks. “It will be a sober shelter,” she says. And it shows. The hotel rooms no longer have large double beds. These have been replaced by metal bunk beds with mattresses with a synthetic turf cover.
The COA will use one hundred rooms in the hotel. There are three or four beds in each room. The restaurant has been converted into a dining room with COA chairs. There is also a recreation room. There are table football tables and table tennis tables. There is also a play area for the children. Two other rooms are furnished as classrooms.
Especially status holders
The shelter mainly houses status holders: people who are allowed to stay in the Netherlands, but for whom there is no home yet. “Initially, 60 status holders will come here and will eventually live here in the municipality of Maashorst,” Suleyman explains. “In addition, there are status holders who end up in one of the surrounding municipalities. If there is still room, refugees come here and have a good chance of being allowed to stay.”
If the shelter is allowed to open on Monday, there will not immediately be a bus full of people. They will travel to Uden one by one from other places in the coming days.
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