Due to an error by the municipality, a number of care workers and teachers were not given priority for a social rental home in Amstelveen, while they were entitled to it.
Because teachers and care staff have few opportunities on the housing market due to their relatively low income, the municipality has reserved 20 social rental homes for these target groups every year since 2021. In this way, the municipality is trying to prevent Amstelveen education and care staff from moving to other municipalities because of the ‘plight living situation’.
Although specific criteria have been established to determine who is eligible for these homes, those criteria were wrongly not used last year. In fact, the council wanted to give priority to education and healthcare staff who have been living in Amstelveen for a long time and/or who are at risk of becoming homeless in the short term, but nothing has come of this.
Spare list
A total of 84 home seekers submitted an application. Thirty of them were told by the municipality that they were eligible, but because only 20 homes are available per year, 10 people were put on the reserve list.
Instead of the established criteria, the selection was based on the duration of registration at Woningnet, where every home seeker saves points. As a result, the candidates who qualify for such social housing have not been placed in the right place on the list, and some have even ended up on the reserve list.
Homeless
The latter applies to someone who was at risk of becoming homeless at the beginning of last year. That person should have been allocated a home on the basis of the expiring lease, but fell by the wayside due to the incorrectly applied criterion.
After the error was discovered in November last year, all victims were informed. Five of them have lodged an objection, two of whom have been given priority housing.