Municipalities in the province of Groningen are faced with a massive influx of status holders, aka asylum seekers with residence permits, and find it difficult to find housing for everyone, the Dagblad van het Noorden reported Monday. The various local councils in Groningen are expected to house 916 people before January 1, 2024, up from 711 in the first half of the year.
In the second half of 2022, they had to accommodate a slightly more manageable 452 individuals, according to the government data.
These figures are an indication of just how big the problem of housing is and how little extra capacity the municipalities have to solve it.
There are currently over 15,000 refugees nationally who have already been given a residence permit but who have to wait for housing at 167 different reception centers, some for a considerable length of time. The government is making various attempts to speed up the flow of the status holders into the communities to reduce the overcrowding at the refugee facilities, such as the Ter Apel reception center, but these efforts frequently translate into increasingly demanding housing assignments for municipalities, including those in Groningen.
The demands are so heavy that Westerwolde, the municipality in which Ter Apel is located, cannot cope anymore. “We managed in the past years to provide housing for the majority of the status holders, mostly in the form of social rental housing,” says local councilor Giny Luth. “But this year, we are no longer able to do so.”
At the moment, Westerwolde is 28 status holders behind the schedule and will have to accommodate an additional 41 people in the next six months.
“We are experiencing a housing shortage, and even social rental housing is not readily available,” says Luth. “We are trying to come up with other solutions, but the challenges are enormous. We could set up prefabricated housing units, but the problem is that we have very little land of our own.”
Oldambt hopes prefab homes will solve its housing shortfall, too. The municipality fell significantly behind in accommodating status holders in recent years, which led to a reprimand from the province. However, a vigorous catch-up effort, including utilizing spaces in a residential care center in Winschoten, successfully eliminated the backlog.
Groningen, the largest municipality in the province, has the highest number of status holders it has to accommodate. Until the end of the year, it needs to find homes for 363 refugees. Corien Koetsier, a spokesperson for the municipality, says the real figure is slightly higher, as Groningen still has a small backlog to address. “We will do our best to meet the quota, but the shortage of homes poses a challenge for us.”
The growing number of status holders and the shortage of available housing present significant hurdles for municipalities in Groningen, the paper says. These are complex issues that require innovative solutions and cooperation between government entities, housing authorities, and local communities to ensure timely and adequate accommodation for those in need.
