The Dutch social housing market shows that refugees are gaining access to certain key areas of this market, including refugees receiving 78 percent of all “starter homes” allocated to families with children in 2023.
The data, from the CBS, shows that refugees receive roughly 8 percent of all vacant social rentals in 2023. However, this figure jumps to 20 percent for those seeking social homes for first-time buyers.
While more and more social homes to buy and rent are going to refugees every year in the Netherlands, in certain specific narrow segments, the figures really stand out. With refugees receiving 78 percent of starter homes for families with children, this amounts to 1,450 houses out of the 1,860 designated for this purpose, according to Dutch news outlet de Volkskrant.
Anti-immigration parties such as the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) have come out against the allocation of social housing to migrants.
“The unfairness in the allocation of social housing appears to be even greater than previously thought. New figures from de Volkskrant show that nationally, not 8% but 20% of starter homes go to status holders. As many as 78% of single-family homes are sold (!) to status holders with children,” the party wrote in a press release.
Councilor Michaël van Soest stated that “the council and all other parties in the municipal council look away from this problem and hide behind the government’s task of housing asylum status holders. But nowhere is it laid down that scarce social housing must be used for this. Status holders can also easily be accommodated in flexible homes or other facilities, so that they do not impinge on residents who have been registered for a new home for 10 years or more. That is unfair and completely inexplicable.”
His comments about refugees receiving expedited social housing are a hot topic in the Netherlands. Despite the ongoing housing crisis, refugees can gain access to social housing in a mere 14 weeks, while the average Dutch citizen must wait up to 12 years. Last year, efforts were being made to right this injustice for Dutch citizens with a new bill, but the Council of State, the country’s highest legal advisory body, criticized any attempt to block housing access to refugees. The authority claims refugees should receive equal treatment, as required by the Dutch constitution.
Of course, the fact that there is no equal treatment currently, and that refugees are gaining access to social housing years before Dutch on waiting lists, did not appear to factor into the Council of State’s concerns, according to Dutch news outlet NOS.nl.
The minister behind the proposal, Mona Keijzer of the BBB party, said she is not backing down. Keijzer’s plan aims to create more affordable housing by ensuring that refugees, or “status holders,” no longer receive priority for housing solely because of their status.
The CBS data clarifies that for this specific segment, “the clearer the demarcation of the group of homes, the higher the share of a specific group, such as status holders, can be.”
While the total number of homes involved decreases as definitions narrow, the impact on local starters remains a central point of the housing debate.
When this is broken down, the specific figures look like this:
- Total Social Housing: 12,730 units (7.9% of total vacancies).
- General Starters: 8,190 units (20% of the starter segment).
- Starter Families with Children: 1,450 units (78% of this specific segment).
The total number of homes allocated to refugees reached nearly 13,000 in 2023, an increase from the approximately 11,000 per year seen in 2021 and 2022. This rise follows the post-pandemic increase in asylum applications with a slight delay.
Distribution also varies wildly by geography. In the Alkmaar region, refugees received 13 percent of available social housing, whereas in the Delfzijl region, that figure dropped to just 2 percent.
The debate over these figures was a focal point during the House of Representatives election campaigns, where different definitions were used to quantify the pressure on the housing market.
