VVD MP apologizes for "disadvantaged neighborhoods" remarks about social housing

On Wednesday, VVD parliamentarian Peter de Groot apologized for his statements about social housing last week. “I made an unfortunate remark about disadvantaged neighborhoods, and I should not have done that,” he said in parliament, NOS reports. “I take that back. And to the people I hurt, I say sorry.”

Responding to the new housing law that requires municipalities to have at least 30 percent social housing, De Groot said that Housing Minister Hugo de Jonge “wants to roll out the disadvantaged neighborhoods of the future throughout the Netherlands.” He also made some controversial remarks about not giving housing priority to people who leave sex work or people coming out of prison or youth care.

De Jonge called the remarks “loveless” and professed surprise about the VVD’s sentiment “about the great need that people themselves experience and the great need for all of us to do everything necessary to address it.”

Various parliamentarians also criticized De Groot’s statements. SP parliamentarian Sandra Beckerman was born in a social rental home. “And I think a lot of people in social housing feel they are looked down upon,” she said. It’s great that De Groot apologized, but she worries that the VVD is still doing too little to restore its previous “demolition policy” toward social housing.

D66 MP Faissal Boulakjar noted that he grew up in a social rental home, and his parents “still enjoy living” there. “I am glad Mr. De Groot has taken back those words and put it right.”