NOS News•
Case holders staying at the Best Western in Rijswijk must have checked out there by next Friday at the latest. This is the result of the lawsuit filed by the municipality. Residents have been offered a flexible home, but they don’t want to move into these container homes.
The hotel houses about 80 people who have been granted asylum in the Netherlands, but who have not yet found a home. The hotel now needs the rooms again, which means the group of status owners have to move. The municipality offered them a new temporary container house on a site where a total of 68 units were placed. The units will stay there for two years, after which the container homes will disappear again. One part for those with status, and another part for people who urgently need a home.
Some of the residency owners feel misled, says their lawyer, Musa Gurselturk. “They were told they would get a permanent home in Rijswijk. It didn’t happen. That’s why the municipality is not complying with its obligations,” he says.
The lawyer also believes that the containers are too small and that permit holders should pay too much rent. “In addition, they cannot provide a container according to their own wishes and therefore feel that they are still living in a center site for asylum seekers.”
“accurate process”
Alderman Van Malsen van Rijswijk (Public Housing and Integration) says that a “very delicate process” has been completed. “This statement is in keeping with our standing as a municipality,” he said in a statement. “We will give people another chance to sign next week and consider any next steps if they prove necessary.”
According to the lawyer Görsültürk, the residence owners will also consider the steps. “Right now, there is no choice but to accept the container,” he says. “But we will think about the next steps with our customers. We believe this is not the way people of prestige should be treated in our country.”
It’s not that residents will be able to stand up again in a couple of years, housing company Rijswijk Wonen asserts. “We will give them a place in the next location, or in the existing housing stock,” says manager Rob van de Broecke, who also refers to the major housing crisis in the Netherlands. “It’s not simply that we have a new home for everyone, for example. But that is true of many people in Dutch society.”