Stop evictions now!

Stop evictions now!

November 17, 2025

Background to our call to action #

We are in the biggest, but also most cynical, housing crisis ever. While one tower after another with expensive and luxurious homes is arising in the cities, desperate families with children are knocking on the door of the Red Cross because they have lost their homes and have nowhere to go. Anyone who is assessed as “self-reliant” according to the municipal Centraal Onthaal (Central Reception) desk in Rotterdam, cannot go to an emergency shelter for homeless people. These days however - because of all the cuts in social services in recent years - there are hardly any shelters left in Rotterdam, so it is almost standard for someone to be sent away with the message that they should look for a couch to sleep on in their own network.

Now that is exactly the problem: the people who have been sent away by Centraal Onthaal and report to the Red Cross have exhausted their network possibilities. They have slept on the proverbial couches with family and friends and really have nowhere to go anymore. This applies not only to families, but also to “self-reliant” homeless people without children. For example, if you (still) have a car, you may as well live in it too…

Initiatiefnota (Private Member’s Memorandum) on homelessness #

The boundaries are being pushed further and further and, in the meantime, nothing is being solved. For example, the Minister of VRO did not consider it necessary to attend the Memorandum consultation on the Homelessness Initiative Memorandum on 22 September 2025. After all, solving homelessness by providing enough affordable housing for everyone is very far-fetched…

In any case, the Memorandum consultation has resulted in the adoption of a number of important motions:

  • Encourage municipalities to provide their share in the construction of social housing and housing for homeless families;

  • Investigate how it can be included in the law that every young person who leaves youth care has the prospect of a sustainable housing perspective before his or her 18th birthday;

  • Legally prohibit children to become homeless as a result of eviction;

  • Prepare proposals with municipalities to provide emergency shelter for homeless families in all residential regions;

  • Ensuring that homeless people receive a postal address within three days of application;

  • Report annually on the development of homelessness.

This does not mean anything will improve in the situation of homeless people shortly, but at least a small step in the right direction has been taken.

Preventing homelessness #

To make matters worse, in Rotterdam we also have to deal with a City Council that prefers not to create too many shelter options for homeless people. It costs money and has a “pull effect”, the responsible alderman repeatedly claims. In addition, the city councilors of VVD Rotterdam do not miss any opportunity to emphasize that the VVD does not want to add any more homes to the social housing stock in the city. According to their spokespersons for Housing, tenants in social housing are “underprivileged importers of problems in neighborhoods” or “fraudulent tenants with too much income (scheefhuurders)”. If the latter were to relocate to much more expensive homes quickly, there would be enough social housing homes left for homeless people. The VVD has apparently forgotten that the housing stock this party considers a “facility for the underprivileged” was less than 15 years ago inhabited by a broad cross-section of the Rotterdam population. Anyone who could not or did not want to buy a home was welcome to rent a higher priced regulated (social) rental home.

The political enforcement of having people move into a home which is as expensive as possible, especially when it concerns tenants, could also be a cause of the explosively increasing homelessness. A substantial number of urgencies are granted every year due to excessive housing costs, see: monitor reports-housing distribution.

As long as there is mainly talk about solving homelessness both nationally and locally and little to no actual action is taken, it is of the utmost importance that homelessness is prevented. That means: stop evictions! And this does not only concern the evictions that are approved by the court, but also the more invisible evictions, such as:

  • Children over the age of 27 living at home and who are not allowed to take over the lease if the parent(s) dies or is admitted to a care institution. Now that more and more children can no longer leave the parental home because of the housing shortage, this will become an increasing problem;

  • Tenants who, due to undesirable behavior or alleged non-permanent occupation of the property - without clear evidence thereof - are requested to voluntarily terminate the lease;

  • Closing the house after an explosion, where the landlord often ends up terminating the lease without the intervention of the court because this is no longer necessary in these situations. Especially if an explosion is intended as revenge in the relational sphere, it is very bitter if it is extra successful for the perpetrator in this way;

  • Expiration of a temporary rental contract, an anti-squat contract, a youth contract, a flex housing contract. Every policymaker could have foreseen that the decision to allow temporary “target group contracts” would lead to the undesirable situation that people would be out on the street or could return to their parental home – if they still have one. Now the time has come for the first contracts to expire, it is not enough to say: “The tenants knew what they were getting into”. Those who have no choice but to accept temporary housing cannot afford to think too consciously about the consequences.

Evictions are no solution #

Evictions are not a solution. An eviction is doing violence to people! Every time a family, a parent with children, a young person or an elderly person is put on the street with a heavy hand, we saddle people with hopeless misery, and we break fundamental human rights. Homelessness is not an accident that just happens: it is the direct result of policies that allow people to lose their homes.

Let’s be clear:

  • Evictions make people homeless. Making people homeless is violent;

  • Homelessness destroys lives: people lose their network, their health, their safety and often their future prospects;

  • Eviction should not be a justification for anything; homelessness costs society billions. The real price is paid in human suffering, premature death, stigmatization and criminalization of homeless people, trauma and social breakdown. And all this because someone has to be “punished” for something?

We no longer accept this. Every eviction is a political choice to rob someone of humanity.

What are the consequences of evictions? #

  • Human drama: homelessness means sleeping on the street, in a shelter or on the couch of acquaintances. It means stress, anxiety and a constant struggle for survival with all its consequences;

  • Health problems: without a stable place to live, the risk of mental health problems, addiction and chronic diseases increases;

  • Social disruption: children lose their school and friends, parents lose their jobs, the elderly their care and support;

  • Economic madness: while homelessness costs an average of €100,000 per person per year, prevention and real housing would be a fraction of that.

Our radical demand: ban evictions! #

No human being should ever again be thrown out on the street by policy or a judge. If there are problems such as rent arrears, nuisance, debts, then one principle must always apply: no one is made homeless!

That means:

  • Not an eviction, but a real housing alternative if someone really cannot stay in the house/environment. No shelter, no container, no holiday home but a really suitable and decent home;

  • Municipalities and landlords must be obliged to prevent homelessness;

  • Experts by experience must have a say in policy. They know what it means to lose your home;

  • We demand an end to homelessness and want independent supervision to ensure that evictions disappear.

Action now! #

We have no more time to lose. It is absurd we first throw people out on the street and then waste billions on (emergency) shelter and recovery. We have to break this system up radically.

Homelessness is not a natural phenomenon. It is organized injustice. And we can stop that injustice together. We no longer want to see situations like the ones described in this article!