Make the Warmtefonds simpler, so that poor families can also insulate their homes

A huge energy bill, not knowing how to get through the month and no money to turn on the stove. Let alone that you have money to make your home more sustainable. That is the situation for many people, but luckily there is the Heat Fund, right? In practice, this approach proves impracticable for the people who need it so badly.

First and foremost, it is a great idea for the central government to set up a heat fund. Intended to lend money to owners with a small budget to make their home more sustainable, such as insulating glass, roof and cavity wall insulation. There is also a scheme for homeowners with little ‘borrowing space’. The province of Overijssel works together with municipalities to make homes more sustainable, while gaining experience with the Heat Fund. I describe below how this works out in practice, based on experiences from the Twente region.

First of all, applicants find the application form complicated with many questions and unable to complete it by themselves. For example, a quote must also be enclosed with the application. But contractors have had enough work and it turns out to be difficult to find a contractor who wants to make a quote for a job that he doesn’t know will actually go ahead. And this is exactly the case here, because the loan has yet to be applied for.

Rotten window frames

Secondly, the Warmtefonds offers loans for home improvement. But older homes often suffer from deferred maintenance. In that case, making housing more sustainable without adjustments is not a solution. Placing insulating glass in rotten wooden windows and frames is pointless. In a house with cracks in a leaking roof, roof insulation makes little sense. Home improvement is first needed, but no loan is given for this.

Thirdly, there is a route specifically for homeowners with little ‘borrowing space’, a BKR registration (due to a credit or debt, red.) or older than 75 years. In addition to the aforementioned problems, there are also some additional barriers: with an application, the customer must be able to submit a rejection of the regular Heat Fund application. The time between the two applications is subject to a certain period.

The applicant must also enclose a recommendation from a financial advisor (WFT) with the application. The costs of hiring the WFT advisor also form a barrier for these homeowners. These appear to be reasons not to apply for the loan via this route.

Life events

These experiences show that the Warmtefonds is (still) does not fit well with the ‘ability to do’ of the target group, as the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) calls it. The WRR states that the government should pay attention to ‘concurrence with ‘life events’, major stress and/or other regulations’. In this case: it is precisely this target group, with poorly insulated homes, that has a sky-high installment amount or annual accounts from the energy company.

If you spend 13 to 20 percent of your income disappears into the energy billYou can bet that that alone will give you a lot of stress. And, to think that this target group almost always has to deal with other regulations, such as benefits and allowances, which at the same time demand a lot from them.

In short, my plea is to simplify the Heat Fund. Because at the moment the target group threatens to drop out, while it is precisely they who benefit enormously from sustainability. I propose the following improvements: Make it possible to borrow through home improvement if this is necessary for sustainability. Work more confidently with easy post-checking. Pay bills quickly and directly to contractors after work is done. Unburden the applicant with financial advice. Finally; let’s accept that the control is not watertight, but many houses are ‘draft-tight’.