Municipalities' financial support to refugees differs significantly

The financial scheme to help refugees who have been granted a temporary residence permit, also known as status holders, during their transition from the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) to receiving a home from the municipality, differs “significantly” per municipality. This was reported by the Dutch Council for Refugees (VWN), based on research they conducted with 55 municipalities.

Many status holders have to deal with a “financial hole” because the money being given to live in the reception center and the benefits after being given a home are not aligned, according to the VWN.

Most municipalities have policies to close this gap, but there is a lot of variation within it. For example, the bridging, meant for the daily costs of life, can be as low as 300 euros or as high as 1,500 euros for a family, and between 200 euros to 1,000 euros for a solitary person.

There are also many differences regarding the conditions, form, terms and timeliness of the financial provisions. In addition, the VWN has noticed that municipalities take very little or no notice of the unique situations of the status holders.

“They do not speak the Dutch language well enough yet, they do not know the financial system in our country, have limited mental resilience due to suppressed traumatic events, and they do not have a social network,” the research report stated.

“Status holders are allowed to do hardly anything during the asylum process and they are forced to just wait,” VWN chairman Frank Candel added. “At the moment that they are assigned a home they are forced to sort everything out all of a sudden.”

This has proven to be very complicated in certain municipalities, Candel sees. A badly organized financial start will also lead to debts and a lot of stress. “This is an obstacle to the integration and participation of status holders."

The COA has stopped submitting applications for allowances for status holders since January 1. They think that it is the municipalities responsibility to help the status holders with this. “If an allowance application is not submitted on time, then this can lead to debts due to them being behind on payments.

Municipalities differ in how they handle these issues, Minister of Asylum and Migration Marjolein Faber said in response to a question in parliament from Kati Piri of GroenLinks-PvdA.