Turning eighteen – Aiden always dreaded it. Then everything would change: the place in the youth safehouse would no longer exist. Returning home to family was not an option.
Aiden ended up in homeless shelters at the age of eighteen, had to fend for himself completely and ended up in debt. “I lived from day to day. I had no idea of the future.”
There is now a vision of the future. This is partly due to the so-called Bouwdepot year in which Aiden was able to participate together with about 120 other young people. Young people in a vulnerable position receive 1,150 euros every month during that year. It is up to them how they spend the money. They can also work as much as they want without having to pay anything back. The only condition is that they are accompanied by a care provider.
In this way, the Bouwdepot Foundation tries to help young people who have become homeless. They cannot go to their parents, for example because they are addicted or have money problems. Homeless young people often live at different addresses. Homeless young people have no roof over their heads at all. The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that around 5,700 young people in the Netherlands were homeless in 2021. Various aid organizations, including the Salvation Army, have seen this group growing in recent years.
The government does not offer them the right help, says co-founder and director of the Stichting Zwerfjongeren Nederland Marleen van der Kolk. Young adults between the ages of 18 and 21 are in a gray area when it comes to social security. On the one hand, when they turn eighteen, their right to a place in youth care expires, as happened to Aiden. On the other hand, they cannot yet receive full social assistance benefits, because parents are in principle legally obliged to financially support their child until the 21st birthday.
Aiden, who does not want his surname in the newspaper for security reasons, talks about the Bouwdepot year in an apartment in Eindhoven, a rental property all to himself. Just before that year started, there was still an amount outstanding for the rent of the previous home. Aiden, now 21, worked three jobs to make ends meet; in sales, in a café and in a concert hall. “When I first received money from the Bouwdepot, I was able to catch up on my rent arrears and stop working at the concert hall. I only work at the café occasionally.”
“I was able to take my girlfriend on a date,” says Aiden. “We went out to dinner and to the movies. Previously, that was simply not an option. I bought noise cancellingearphones to help me concentrate better on my training. And I could pay for train tickets to Amsterdam.”
“The money mainly gave me more time to work on myself and feel better mentally.” In that freed up time, Aiden, who is non-binary, started treatment at the gender clinic of the Amsterdam UMC, among other things.
Many young people start working on their health during the Bouwdepot year, says Van der Kolk. A boy was overweight and wanted to lose weight. He could use the monthly amount to take out a gym membership. He lost weight and is therefore feeling better about himself. According to Van der Kolk, other young people go to therapy because they suffer from depression and sometimes suicidal thoughts.
“Some young people we see first had to survive on a few hundred euros a month,” says Van der Kolk. Parents may not be able to reconcile for various reasons. “They often barely make ends meet or are not in the picture. It is difficult for young people to work on themselves and their future, because they worry too much about their financial situation.”
The monthly amount should help the young people get their lives in order. At the beginning of the year they set goals that they want to achieve. In the three years that the Bouwdepot has existed, young people came up with goals such as: ‘Feeling good about myself again’, ‘More self-confidence’, ‘Get a driving license’, ‘Find a part-time job’, ‘Find your own home’.
“We hear that access to the housing market is improving,” says Van der Kolk. “With the money that young people receive, they can, for example, save or pay the deposit for a new room or rental home.”
A new hobby
Aiden also found his own home during the Bouwdepot year and further developed a hobby: tattooing. “I have now bought a tattoo machine so that I can tattoo people myself and get more involved in the world. I actually hope that I can start working in a shop soon.”
By gaining experience on the labor market, some young people discover that they lack skills, says Van der Kolk. For example, their day and night rhythm is disrupted, making it difficult for them to get up on time. They communicate poorly with the employer: sometimes they do not speak for a few days. “A boy had seventeen different jobs during the Bouwdepot year. We see that it is important to learn through trial and error, without having to cut benefits or having to fill out a form with every new job.”
The young people are completely free in how they spend the monthly amount. Some don’t dare to spend anything in the beginning, says Van der Kolk. They want to save. “But you can also save too much. The purpose of that year is also to be a little young. It is precisely by making the wrong purchase, such as a piece of clothing that you don’t like, that you learn to manage money better.”
Others want to use the money to pay off their debts as quickly as possible. Ellen Bijkerk, supervisor at the care and welfare organization Neos, guides a participant from the Bouwdepot in Eindhoven. He has debts, she says, and therefore decided to have his monthly 1,150 euros managed by a budget manager so that he can pay off his debts faster. “As a supervisor, I give tips in such a case on how to do your shopping as cheaply as possible.”
Young people in the municipalities of Eindhoven, Amersfoort, Groningen and Rijnstreek currently participate in the Bouwdepot. The municipalities themselves finance the monthly amount that young people receive. “There is great support among municipalities,” says Van der Kolk. “It doesn’t take much to convince them.” So far, the number of young people that municipalities can support is still limited. “The demand is much greater. That is why we have to draw lots for places.”
Broader trend
The Bouwdepot is part of a broader trend of initiatives to support incomes, says Anna Custers, lecturer in poverty interventions at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. For example, Just Give Money, a Kansfonds project, where families on social assistance receive 150 euros on top of their benefits for two years. And Collective Capital, which gives the lowest-paid workers an additional 1,000 euros per month.
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What these initiatives have in common is that they provide money almost without any conditions, says Custers. “That is exceptional, but also necessary to actually give people a helping hand.” People, Custers notes, often experience stress when interacting with the government. Applying for benefits involves all kinds of rules. “They are afraid of making a mistake and being punished financially for it. The young people who receive money from the Bouwdepot have one less thing to worry about.”
The necessity and success of these initiatives show that the social security system is not functioning properly, says Custers. According to her, the system is needlessly complex. This was also stated by the Social Minimum Committee, which published a report in September containing urgent advice to the future cabinet to quickly simplify income schemes. According to the committee, citizens are currently getting lost in a “maze” of regulations.
Custers: “A single parent in the Netherlands is entitled to about thirty different schemes. If we were to ask ourselves what people need and how we can make that as easy as possible, we would not come up with the current system as an answer.”