Exactly one week ago, Mayor Maarten Houben van Nuenen’s telephone rang: the security region. He was asked whether he could conduct an exploration of how a maximum of five hundred refugees could be accommodated in his municipality. “I immediately said yes.”
It is a humanitarian issue for the Nuenen mayor, he explains. “No one wants degrading situations. We must be willing to do everything we can contribute to reduce them.”
Immediately after he said ‘yes’ to the security region, Houben started confidentially informing what he calls the ‘directly involved’. “The business park in the neighbourhood, the district council of Eeneind, peripheral municipalities, politics.” No one is necessarily cheering. But at the same time, I mainly hear comments such as: ‘There is a humanitarian crisis in the Netherlands. We have to do something’. And that’s my line too.”
“The question was not if, but how.”
Because the housing of 500 refugees at Gulbergen is still in the exploration stage, there is a good chance that it will come. “The question was indeed not if, but how”, the mayor acknowledges. “That is a difference. But theoretically it could still be that I say: ‘It is not possible’.” But the reality is, it probably can.
Seven years ago, a plan was worked out to accommodate many more refugees in that location. “A plan was made for 1200 Syrian refugees at the time,” Houben says. “That was possible. Anyway, we are now seven years further and society has changed.”
The many questions that still remain are causing unrest in his congregation. “Many questions always lead to unrest. And those questions are concrete: what kind of people will come, single men or families? And a question from politicians is whether there will be another decision moment: do they still have something to say about it?”
“If you tell so many people in confidence, it leaks out anyway.”
The mayor would have preferred that he had been able to collect all the answers to such questions before the news came out. Then he could have painted a more complete picture, he says. “But at some point you told so many people in confidence that it leaked out anyway.” Unavoidable. “But I would rather have waited a little longer.”
The mayor chooses his words carefully when he talks about the reception of asylum seekers. “I don’t feel free enough yet. Everyone benefits from having answers as quickly as possible, but if there are I want it to be good and complete in one go.”
“But,” he recovers, “I didn’t hesitate for a second to answer yes to the question. I was also happy with the question: ‘Do an exploration of how it can be done.’ If you can contribute something to make it better, then you just have to put your shoulders to the wheel.”
If it is up to the security region, the first refugees will arrive on 1 November. Houben does not know whether that is feasible. “Hopefully I’ll have more answers in a week.”
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