For six weeks, most social housing that becomes available will go to status holders. Utrecht wants to help 490 status holders find a home this year. The city hopes this will relieve the overcrowded reception center in Ter Apel. “The government has appealed to municipalities to accelerate the housing of 7,500 status holders by 2022, including 490 in the municipality of Utrecht,” says Alderman Dennis de Vries (PvdA) of Wonen. “This has an impact on all home seekers. They are all equally dear to us. By catching up with the backlog more quickly, we can return to the usual distribution in September,” said the alderman. “We opt for the short cut. It hurts for a while, but after that we can quickly return to normal,” said alderman for Asylum and Integration Rachel Streefland (ChristenUnie) in a response to de Volkskrant.
Above all, he wants to ‘structurally increase the number of available homes by accelerating the realization of temporary homes’ in order to eliminate the housing shortage. This concerns a thousand houses in 2023 and the rest a year later. This number is in addition to existing plans for permanent social housing. This gives home seekers more perspective.”
The Utrecht plans fit in with the policy of Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing). He wants flexible housing to be built quickly in places with a housing shortage. The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) warned on Tuesday that its expectations are too rosy.