Banning cities from giving refugees housing priority is discriminating: Council of State
The Council of State is very critical of a bill that would ban municipalities from giving refugees priority when assigning social housing. The ban would lead to discrimination against refugees, and that violates the right to equal treatment guaranteed by the Dutch Constitution, the government’s main advisory body said in its advice on the law.
Refugees - asylum seekers whose application was approved and received a residency permit - start with an unfavorable position in the housing market, the Council of State pointed out. “This bill removes the option for municipalities to compensate for this disadvantage with a priority scheme. If an instrument for compensating inequality is withdrawn for one specific group, while that group is not in an equal starting position, this leads to unequal treatment.”
The government has announced measures intended to improve refugees’ position in the housing market, but the Council of State is unimpressed. “It is unrealistic to expect these measures to have the necessary effect in a timely manner,” the advisory body said. “Refugees will therefore continue to be disadvantaged. Consequently, the bill violates the right to equal treatment guaranteed by the Constitution.”
The Council of State acknowledged that affordable rental housing is very scarce in the Netherlands, and the government faces dilemmas in determining who will have access to social housing under what circumstances. “Criteria must be formulated ot achieve the fairest possible distribution,” the Council of State said. Discriminating against refugees is not the way to do it.
The Council of State also pointed out that the residency permit a refugee receives when their asylum application is approved is “accompanied by a social responsibility to provide adequate housing.”
All of that, “combined with the fact that municipalities are being placed in a very difficult position, the Advisory Division cannot issue a positive recommendation on the bill,” the Council of State said. “It advises the government not to submit it to parliament.”
