“Dear Madam, The lease agreement of your home has been canceled. The lease ends on April 30, 2025”, is the letter from the housing association. It is the start of a nightmare for 33-year-old Yunah from West. She has to leave the house as quickly as possible, but has no place where she can go with her 6-year-old daughter.
Lease
According to the municipality, her mother, the main tenant, has not been in the house too long. In blind panic, her mother wrote out with the idea that her daughter and granddaughter could take over the house. But that turned out not to be possible at all, the lease could not be put on the name of Yunah.
Despite responding to all kinds of homes everywhere in the Netherlands and the call for help with the municipality, no one can help her. From leniency she was allowed to stay in the house for a while, but now she really threatens to end up on the street with her 6-year-old daughter.
When asked where she goes: “I don’t know. I don’t have anything to go. The shelter is full. I sincerely don’t know where we are going and that feels terrible”, the born Amsterdam answer.
House evictions
This case does not stand on its own according to the Ombudsman for Children, who this week a report wrote about homeless families in the city. According to her, house evictions should be prevented if there is no insight into another home and there should be more customization.
Something Yunah agrees, she has not been heard at all. “Trust must come back and people must have a point where they can go and where it is safe and that you know that there is correct information to you. I have missed that very much.”
Alderman Rutger Groot Wassink of shelter says he cannot go into the situation of the 33-year-old. He does mention the conclusions and advice in the report of the Ombudsman’s report: “I think we have often applied the human size very often if you look at the number of house evictions.”
The alderman wrote this week, together with the aldermen of other major cities, one letter The Lower House in which he asks for help for the care of homeless families. According to him, Amsterdam himself is already trying a lot in conversation with the housing associations. “I am always willing to look at what else we can do. We are all on the same side and we are always willing to enter new things.”