Amsterdam mayor Halsema calls on Cabinet to invest more in mental healthcare

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema calls on the Cabinet to invest in mental healthcare. In an interview with De Telegraaf, she says that proportionally more money is spent "on yoga moms with mild depression than on people with severe psychiatric illnesses who urgently need help."

According to Halsema, there is "really a limit in sight" to the number of people with mental health problems living in already vulnerable neighborhoods. These people often depend on social housing and live in neighborhoods with a lot of social housing. According to Halsema, this is also a consequence of the so-called socialization of care. "The idea that people should be able to participate in society. They shouldn't be locked up in the woods all their lives."

The Amsterdam mayor points out in De Telegraaf that this is a nice idea but that there must also be sufficient care and support for these people. And that is precisely what she believes is lacking. Therefore, she thinks it would be better if some people were placed in "collective facilities" where "they can be taken in, protected and treated."

In the newspaper, the mayor advocates shortening the waiting lists for youth care and strengthening the police in the city's neighborhoods. She also wants the municipal health service, mental health care, the municipality, and the police to work better together on cases involving people with mental health problems. However, this would require an amendment to the Data Protection Act.

Therefore, Halsema wants to implement measurements to ensure fewer gaps between those institutions that provide help. "The help is too fragmented. When I am at the residents' evening in Hagenau, too many telephone numbers are mentioned. I want one number that people can call and be taken seriously immediately. That has to be faster, easier, more accessible. We are also working hard on that," she tells De Telegraaf.

Halsema also calls on Minister Marjolein Faber of Asylum and Migration to actually deport migrants who have exhausted their asylum procedures. And if she fails to do so, not to abandon the municipalities. She refers to the bed-bath-bread scheme, which the government wants to stop. With this scheme, cities offer shelter to undocumented people. Halsema fears that the "psychological and social problems will worsen very quickly" if these people no longer have a roof over their heads.