Meierijstad will receive refugees and asylum seekers in several places throughout the municipality in the coming years. The shelter for 120 status holders at a holiday park near Sint-Oedenrode is the most striking. But first there are 70 to 80 minors. There will also be flexible housing for status holders. This is evident from a plan that the municipality presented on Tuesday.
The municipality of Meierijstad with a population of 80,000 must receive 300 asylum seekers, 450 Ukrainian refugees and 200 status holders this year. “We especially want several smaller locations,” says mayor Kees van Rooij. “No more than 500 people in one place. So not as usual at an asylum seekers center.”
The large towns in the municipality, Veghel, Schijndel and Sint-Oedenrode will all receive a part.
Crisis shelter
At the moment, the municipality alone takes in about 420 Ukrainian refugees. They live in a former monastery in Veghel, an old bank in Sint-Oedenrode and in various houses spread across the municipality. “We thought that the shelter would only be needed for six months and that people would then go back,” says the mayor. “We now want to extend those places.”
An office building on the Heidebloemstraat in Schijndel and the old town hall in that place will become a temporary crisis shelter. In total there is room for 190 asylum seekers. There are mainly people who are now being cared for at Landgoed Velder in Liempde and who have already lived in many other temporary places. “We want to get rid of hopping with people,” says mayor Van Rooij. “This should therefore be their last place.”
Chalets
The most striking place is holiday park Boschvoort near Sint-Oedenrode. There are now about eighteen chalets in that park. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) wants to receive 120 status holders there for the next three to six years. These are people who already have a status, but are still waiting for the allocation of the municipality where they will eventually live.
“It is a kind of waiting room,” says the mayor. But before asylum status holders are taken in, the park will first be used to temporarily accommodate some seventy to eighty unaccompanied minor asylum seekers.
Flex housing
The municipality must also provide a place for 200 status holders in the coming year. There were already plans for 200 flexible homes in the municipality, which are being put up by the housing companies. But the municipality is now buying 144 flexible homes itself and placing them at De Hopbel sports park in Schijndel. These houses are for status holders, but also for young people or emergency seekers. “We want to prevent other people from having less chance of finding a house now that we have to accommodate more status holders,” says Kees van Rooij.
But whether all these measures are enough remains to be seen. “In the short term, we are fulfilling our assignment. More Ukrainians will come. But we do not yet know whether more refugees will arrive from Turkey and Syria, for example, due to the earthquakes there,” said the mayor of Meierijstad.