Status holders lose summary proceedings and have to leave the hotel in Rijswijk

NOSDe units in Rijswijk

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 19:44

The status holders who stay in the Best Western hotel in Rijswijk must have left there by next Friday at the latest. This is the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the municipality. The residents have been offered a flexible home, but do not want to move to those container homes.

The hotel houses about 80 people who have been granted asylum in the Netherlands, but have not yet found a home. The hotel now needs the rooms again, which means that the group of status holders has to move. The municipality offered them a new temporary container home on a site where a total of 68 units have been placed. The units will be there for two years, after which the container homes will disappear again. One part is for status holders, another part for people who urgently need a house.

Some of the status holders feel misled, says their lawyer Musa Görsültürk. “The image was presented to them that they would get a permanent home in Rijswijk. That did not happen. That is why the municipality does not comply with its obligations,” he says.

The lawyer also believes that the containers are too small and that the permit holders have to pay too much rent. “In addition, they cannot furnish a container according to their own wishes and they therefore get the feeling that they are still living in an asylum seekers’ center location.”

‘Careful process’

Alderman Van Malsen van Rijswijk (Public Housing and Integration) says that a “very careful process” has been completed. “This statement is in line with our position as a municipality,” he said in a statement. “We will give people another opportunity to sign next week and will consider any next steps should they prove necessary.”

According to lawyer Görsültürk, the status holders will also consider steps. “At the moment there is no choice but to accept the container,” he says. “But we will think about the next steps with our clients. We believe that this is not the way status holders should be treated in our country.”

It is not the case that the residents will be able to stand up again in two years’ time, emphasizes housing corporation Rijswijk Wonen. “We will then give them a place at the next location, or in the existing housing stock,” says director Rob van de Broeke, who also points to the major housing crisis in the Netherlands. “It is not the case that we simply have a new home for everyone, for example. But that applies to many people in Dutch society.”

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