Understanding homelessness

BuurToren is happy to provide insight into homelessness. What is homelessness and why is it so important that homelessness is solved as soon as possible. The first part of this question seems strange, but it is crucial. The definition of homelessness determines the extent. And if we don’t know the extent of the problem, we can’t (completely) solve the problem.

The second part of the question has to do with the fundamental right to adequate housing. That fundamental right starts with housing people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. It does not start with the people who already have a large home and want to have an even larger (read: more expensive) home or want to use this or rent it out as a second or even as a third or fourth home.

We are experiencing the largest housing crisis since the Second World War. During a major crisis, it is only natural that scarce goods are rationed. Why don’t we do the same with homes? You can only guess the answer. The established political parties in charge do not want this. It would ‘harm’ their supporters and so they are willing to go to great lengths to defend the interests of their clients. Despite all the fine words, the supporters of those political parties are mainly concerned with making as much money as possible from renting out, selling and even leaving homes empty.

Why don’t we tackle this vacancy radically? Why is the right to own property so much more important than the right to adequate housing? It is all about the interests. Unfortunately, we are ruled by capital and by people who do not put the interests and well-being of their fellow human beings first. More about vacancy will follow later.

Ambitions #

There is no lack of ambition, but a lack of results. The official ambition is that homelessness must be eradicated by 2030, with more focus on prevention, from temporary shelter to permanent housing and support. These ambitions are laid down in the National Homelessness Action Plan ‘First a home’.

But given the latest developments, we can safely say that this ambition will not be achieved by a long shot. That National Homelessness Action Plan is full of empty promises. The failure to achieve the ambition is primarily due to the shortage of social housing. In addition, homeless people have to jump through all kinds of hoops before they are designated as legally urgent housing applicants and given priority above others.

There is no real attention for homelessness, the construction of social housing is frustrated, and, in the meantime, the social rental sector is deliberately demolished. Yes, you read that right. Deliberately, through malicious policies such as: sale of social housing, demolition of social housing, rent liberalization, making housing associations pay profit tax while they have no profit motive. They have one core task: to house people who cannot find a home themselves due to circumstances. Homeless people should therefore be given priority at all times.

Private landlords do not have the primary task of housing people who cannot find a home due to circumstances. They only have dollar signs in front of their eyes and have no interest in keeping housing affordable, because that limits their profits. One of their popular phrases is: “Every home we rent out is affordable, even if the rent is € 2,000 per month, otherwise the house would not be rented out”. That attitude alone should be enough to ban slumlords.

The causes of homelessness #

There are four main routes to homelessness:

1. No shelter after a major life-event (divorce, job loss). As a result of the strict income limits when applying for affordable rent (two-income households quickly end up in the expensive intermediate or market rent sector) and the exorbitantly increased prices of owner-occupied homes, more and more people can no longer pay the rent or mortgage with one income;
2. No shelter after leaving institutions (mental health care, detention). Often people have lost their homes in the run-up to admission or detention. It is no longer a matter of course that a new home will be available again after that;
3. Eviction, which is also more and more for reasons other than payment arrears or nuisance. For example, co-residents who are not officially co-tenants are usually evicted by housing associations when the main occupant moves out;
4. Remigration. For those who have lived abroad for a while and want to return to the Netherlands, finding affordable housing has become almost impossible.

In addition, homelessness arises as a result of stopping uncertain, precarious forms of housing:

• Not renewing temporary leases. Temporary leases are no longer permitted by law on a large scale. However, there are still many tenants who become homeless because their temporary contract is now expiring and the (private) landlord does not want to convert that contract into an indefinite contract. Because of the recent legal changes, renting out properties is no longer profitable enough according to these landlords and they therefore want to sell their properties, of course without tenants in them because then they can ask a higher price;

• Living in holiday parks. In many municipalities this is still tolerated, but enforcement of the prohibition rule can happen at any time. There is talk on legislation regarding the permanent occupation of recreational homes, but for the time being this is not yet the case and tenants can be forced to leave at any time;

• Anti-squat/demolition homes. This was once intended as the temporary and free(!) occupation of homes to keep a street/complex livable until renovation or demolition. Unfortunately, it has become a lucrative revenue model for vacancy management companies, which often do not take the rights and interests of temporary tenants very seriously;

• Flexible housing and youth housing. Leases are concluded for both flexible housing and youth housing for five years. After those five years, the tenants have to leave. The policymakers who came up with both forms of housing assumed that a permanent housing solution would be available after five years. What skeptics already predicted, unfortunately turns out to be the reality now that the first five-year contracts are expiring: there is no follow-up home, and the temporary tenants can return to their parents or are out on the streets.

Definitions and figures #

The extent of the homelessness problem is highly dependent on the definition used to count the number of homeless people. Dutch government policy is determined on the basis of the figures that follow from the definition of Statistics Netherlands (CBS). According to this definition, only homeless people between the ages of 18 and 65 who sleep outside or in a temporary shelter for homeless people are counted.

The figures from Statistics Netherlands show the following trend:

• Increase in the number of homeless people from 18,000 (2009) to 39,000 (2018), then a slight decrease to 32,000 (2021);
• At the beginning of 2024, there were about 33,000 people homeless in the Netherlands. This means that the number of people without their own place to live in has risen for the second year in a row: at the beginning of 2022 it was about 27,000 people, a year later (2023) it was about 30,000.

These figures from Statistics Netherlands give a flattering picture of reality. Unofficial figures indicate that the number of people who are homeless is more likely to be 100,000. In the definition of the CBS, the following groups of homeless people are not included in the figures:

• People aged 65 and over;
• Young people under the age of 18;
• People with or without children in an emergency shelter facility;
• People leaving care institutions;
• People without residence papers;
• Couch sleepers;
• People who live in holiday parks or hotels;
• Large invisible group: people without an official home address (514,000 deregistered from BRP in 2019), some of whom reside in the Netherlands without stable shelter.

The current CBS definition is limited and therefore insufficient. In other European countries, the broader ETHOS definition is used, which was developed by the FEANTSA (European Federation of Organisations Working with Homeless People). The ETHOS definition uses a broad classification of homelessness, unstable and inadequate housing. This creates a more accurate and usable picture for monitoring and policy. Ethos Light is the toolbox in which the various ETHOS homelessness categories are summarized in six main categories which enables mapping the number of homeless people according to the ETHOS definition in a uniform way everywhere.

For years, the Netherlands has refused to use the ETHOS definition. This is now slowly changing as more and more municipalities start mapping homelessness according to Ethos Light. As described earlier, the Dutch government is not actually doing very much to ensure that homelessness is eradicated by 2030. However, this is an agreement that was already made at European level in 2020. In addition, both national and local politicians often forget that housing is a fundamental human right.

The European context #

In 2020, the European Parliament adopted a resolution to end homelessness by 2030. The Lisbon Declaration (2021) emphasizes once again what this means in any case:

• no one has to sleep outside due to lack of good shelter;
• no one has to stay in the shelter longer than necessary;
• no one is discharged from prison or hospital, youth care (care institution in general) without adequate housing available to them;
• as few people as possible are evicted from their homes and no one is evicted from their homes without support towards suitable housing;
• people who are homeless are not discriminated against just for being in this position.

Housing as a human right #

Housing is a fundamental human right. This has been confirmed in:

• the Constitution;
• the European Social Charter;
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR);
• European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Homelessness is the most extreme violation of this right and it means more than just not having a roof over one’s head. Homeless people lose their safety and privacy, and they have no access to education and care. In addition, they are more likely to be victims of violence, criminalization, stigmatization and they have a shorter life expectancy.

Vulnerable groups (people with a lower income, young people leaving youth care, ex-prisoners) are at increasing risk of becoming homeless. After all, access to affordable housing is becoming more impossible by the day, because the social rental stock has been actively reduced for years through rent liberalization and sales. This policy is taking its toll more and more, because groups that have been able to manage so far are also increasingly getting into trouble. For example, the group of homeless people is expanding every day: with women, children, families and (labor) migrants who also immediately lose their housing when they lose their jobs.

The role of the government #

The government has obligations regarding the availability, housing security, accessibility and affordability of housing. The human rights approach helps to work on structural solutions to put an end to homelessness. Housing is the basis, the foundation for all other aspects of life. That is why the – already proven successful – Housing First principle is the best way to meet this basic condition; first arrange housing and then tackle any other problems.

So far, we have seen little willingness on the part of both national and local governments to comply with both the Constitution and the European agreements when it comes to the fundamental human right to housing. There are even politicians who like to downplay the constitutional responsibility of the government to provide adequate housing or laconically remark this does not mean people can realize that fundamental right anywhere and anytime. In doing so, they “defend” their choice to build homes for other target groups than those who need a home most of all, the people who are actually homeless.

When an alarming article appears somewhere about increasing homelessness, for example among families with children, politicians do not respond with proposals for actual solutions, but mainly say how sad it all is. Subsequently, the criteria for eligibility for emergency shelter or the priority criteria for getting a home will be tightened again.

Meanwhile, plans for housing are being made everywhere that usually do not benefit homeless people: rental homes with intermediate rent prices and owner-occupied homes. Among policymakers and politicians, there is still an unchangeable idea that people continue to pursue a “housing career” throughout their lives and (want to) live more expensive, larger and/or more luxurious with every income improvement. Because affordable housing will then automatically become available, the idea goes, it is not necessary to build too many new social rental homes. A stock of 30% per municipality should be more than enough. Unfortunately, housing applicants or potential homeowners are never asked what they want themselves. The policy determines which rent price or mortgage suits a certain income, regardless of the individual situation of a household looking for a home. Those who buy still get to decide for themselves how high the housing costs should be, but those who rent are prescribed a rent based on gross income and a hard maximum income limit. Even in the intermediate rental sector with a basic rent of € 1,184 to which service costs still need to be added, there is already talk of the “danger of crooked renters” if people continue to live there after income improvement. The boundaries are being pushed further and further and this increases the risk of homelessness in the event of financial setbacks.

The consequence of the policy is that tenants in particular have to pay a monthly amount for housing costs that is just doable in the best case. In the event of unforeseen expenses or a drop in income, things can go wrong quickly, and homelessness is lurking. Especially if a household has had to rent in the intermediate or market rent sector because of the maximum income limit or the simple fact that there was no social rental housing available. Sometimes, an interim period is possible in the form of housing allowance or temporary rent reduction, but this is always subject to the condition that a cheaper home must be sought.

To stop the ever-increasing homelessness among more and more groups of people, a different way of thinking about housing is desperately needed. As long as the policy does not take the fundamental right to housing as a starting point, but the idea of “moving up on the housing ladder” continues to be leading, the problems will only get worse and homelessness on a large scale, just like in the US and the UK, will become something that is “just part of life”. We can’t let that happen in the country where public housing of good quality and really affordable homes was pretty much invented?!

Conclusion #

Homelessness is a growing and rapidly increasing problem that affects more and more people in the Netherlands. It is a fundamental violation of the right to housing. The urgency to structurally solve homelessness is hardly felt by both the national and local governments.

The mere fact that the CBS figures only show a part of the total group of homeless people shows that the government would rather duck than face the problem in its entirety. There has long been a much better way to count the number of homeless people: the ETHOS Light system, which is based on the ETHOS definition of when someone is homeless. A number of municipalities in the Netherlands are already using the ETHOS Light system, and it is very important that there is a strong push for its use on a nationwide level, including by CBS itself.

The Housing First approach has proven to be effective and deserves priority. Currently, Housing First is only used on a limited scale. If solving homelessness is a serious ambition, more (government) money can also be made available to keep the rent of housing association homes with maximum WWS rents low between the capping limit and the liberalization limit for former homeless people with a low income. During a housing crisis that mainly affects the lowest-paid, it is not very logical – in accordance with the rules of the Appropriate Allocation (Passend Toewijzen) – to make only the stock of homes with a maximum WWS rent below the capping limit available to homeless people and other urgent housing applicants with a lower income.

Finally, structural prevention, affordable rental housing and national control are essential for achieving the goal of eradicating homelessness by 2030. And as long as the government does not deliver, residents of cities and villages will take the initiative themselves to provide homeless people with places to live in. For example, BuurToren is currently working on making its first building, called BuurvrouwPelger, suitable for occupants. Named after Ms. Grarda Pelger from the Tweebosbuurt, who fought against the demolition of her beloved neighborhood until the last moment of her life. She and her neighbors had to make way for gentrification, for people with more money. As uncompromising as she was, we will remain when it comes to eradicating homelessness!