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!