Dutch gov't to invest more into making social housing more sustainable: report

The government is structurally allocating an extra 100 million euros for making social rental homes more sustainable. Housing corporations will receive this amount annually starting next year, sources around the cabinet told RTL Nieuws.

The extra investment will officially be announced on Budget Day, on September 20th, according to the broadcaster. In the coalition agreement the government already promised housing corporations 100 million euros structurally to make their homes more sustainable.

The housing corporations asked the government for extra money because they are faced with huge investments. According to their calculations, it will cost 108 billion euros to make all social rental homes gas-free and CO2-neutral by 2050. And that is not even counting new rental homes that have to be built.

According to Marnix Norder, chairman for the association of housing corporations Aedes, this extra investment is "a very meager start". For that amount you can, at most, buy a few energy-saving lamps for each rental property, he said to the broadcaster. The extra investment is a step in the right direction, but still too little.

The extra investment comes after the negotiations for next year's budget. In the negotiations, coverage had to be found for the abolition of dividend tax, which the VVD wanted, according to the broadcaster. In return, the other three coalition parties demanded new investments for a comparable amount.