Amsterdam to provide more housing for new teachers

In an attempt to reduce the teacher shortage in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam is allocating 100 homes for which new teachers will get priority, the city announced on Friday. The city hopes that easier accessibility to housing will make it more attractive for starting teachers to teach in Amsterdam.

These homes will be located in so-called mixed complexes in various locations in the city - complexes which the city and the housing corporations realized for refugees, students and young people. The college of mayor and aldermen is working with school managements to determine which criteria starting teachers must meet to qualify for one of these allocated homes. This is to make sure that the teachers who apply will help solve the teacher shortage in the city.

Amsterdam is also looking into whether it will be possible to give similar housing priority to people working in the healthcare- or youth sector and for the police.

"Unfortunately, due to high prices, there is not place for everyone in the Amsterdam housing market", housing alderman Laurens Ivens said. "Professions in social services form the backbone of our city, but often we see that starters from these professional groups have too small a wallet to live in the city. This experiment does not solve the problems in the housing market, but gives these defining professions priority on living space in the city."

Amsterdam schools have been facing a growing teacher shortage for months. The housing priority experiment is one of the measures the city is taking to resolve this problem.

"To tackle this shortage, the college is taking various measures that make it more attractive for teachers to teach in Amsterdam. For example, teachers living outside of Amsterdam can make use of a travel allowance and available parking spaces for schools can be divided between them", education alderman Simone Kukenheim said. "This agreement to make 100 student and youth housing units available to starting teachers as a priority also helps to tackle the shortage of teachers."