In times of housing shortage, it is ‘not explaining’ that status holders (asylum seekers with a residence permit) can be given priority over a social rental home, says Minister Mona Keijzer of Housing (BBB). But can she also explain whether, and how, the waiting time of other home seekers becomes shorter as status holders who do not get priority anymore?
No, according to critical reactions from nearly sixty municipalities to Keijzer’s bill for a ban on priority to status holders. Keijzer’s plan threatens to only increase the problems on the housing market and in the asylum shelter, aldermen fear from Texel to Sittard-Geleen. Waiting times for social rental properties are not necessarily shorter, while the asylum shelter threatens to remain overfall. Status holders already occupy more than a quarter of the total number of asylum beds due to a shortage of homes where they can move; In 2026 that will be half, predict The COA.
It has been agreed in the government program that the Housing Act must be amended to ensure that municipalities are no longer allowed to give status holders priority in the allocation of social rental housing. The Housing Act regulates, among other things, the fair distribution of homes. Municipalities have the opportunity to help vulnerable people with urgency to a social home. Such as women who come from a violent relationship, people who need a different home for medical reasons, and asylum seekers who have just been told that they can stay in the Netherlands.
The latter is not the latter. With the housing shortage in mind, it wants to “create equal opportunities for all home seekers”. Minister Keijzer thinks he is able to achieve this by explicitly explicitly making status holders in the Housing Act that home seekers who may need urgency.
Very critical
Citizens, civil society organizations and other stakeholders were able to give their opinion about the bill. Organizations such as the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA), Refugee Work, the Migration Advisory Board and the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights are very critical of the intended prohibition.
Municipalities are also almost uniform negative and advise Keijzer to withdraw her proposal. This is because that is bad with their legal task of accommodating status holders. “With this we get an impracticable task,” warn, among others, Amsterdam, Groningen, The Hague and Helmond. At least sixteen municipalities warn that status holders can end up on the street if municipalities are not allowed to help them priority to a home.
Between the 5 and 10 percent From the social rental housing is currently going to status holders. Municipalities in the Nijmegen region charge the Keijzer: for a waiting period of seven years, a ban on priority to status holders would shorten the waiting time by a maximum of eight months. “Only a marginal improvement,” is the conclusion.
If the cabinet does indeed want equal opportunities, Amsterdam writes, “all urgency could be abolished.”
The cabinet seems to ignore the reason why the possibility of priority exists, the critical municipalities state. Keijzer seems to think that urgency is attached to the asylum status, according to its explanation of the law and the way in which she formulates the prohibition: “Not the home seekers (…) do not include permit holders on the ground that they are a permit holder.” But “the urgent housing demand and not the origin or residence status of a person is leading,” explains Amsterdam. Status holders cannot build up a waiting time, and most of them hardly have a social network or their own income that enable them to find a home on their own.
Seven Veluwe municipalities have announced that they would not care about the prohibition. “The Noord Veluwe region continues to offer priority homes to permit holders,” they write to Keijzer.
‘Flexible start -up houses’
Remarkably, status holders are mentioned in another bill of Keijzer as “attention group” “whose housing demand can be seen as urgent”. This concerns the Public Housing Direction Act. There the government writes that it wants ‘more opportunity’ for vulnerable groups of home seekers. Keijzer sent the proposal last month To the House of Representatives, the prohibition on priority to status holders went to consultation four days later.
A solution for status holders who cannot get away from the asylum shelter due to the housing shortage in ‘flexible start -up homes’ and flow locations, says Keijzer. Many municipalities are not waiting for this. “Municipalities prefer to build affordable rental and owner-occupied homes to make good use of available space in one go (…), also for people with a residence permit,” writes, for example, the Stedendriehoek (Apeldoorn, Deventer, Zutphen).
Municipalities already have the possibility not to give priority to status holders. The urgency statement is determined by municipal councils. For example, status holders in Castricum ” for more than five years’ have not been presented, the municipality writes in one of the two positive reactions from municipal land. There, however, the waiting time for other home seekers is ‘not taken’, Amsterdam signals. This is because the total number of home seekers does not diminish, so that the intended prohibition on priority ‘nothing’ resolves.