Report: “Tense” Amsterdam social housing debate as rents go up

The Huurdersvereniging Amsterdam and housing corporations had a tense debate on the continuing shortage of social housing, and their increasing rents on Thursday night. A decision was made that the HA, the housing corporations and the Amsterdam municipality should meet to discuss new cooperation agreements in the housing market, in which less social housing should disappear, Het Parool reports. The HA feels that more social housing is absolutely necessary due to the arrival of thousands of refugees, who will need places to stay. The reason for Thursday night's meeting was the tenants' organizations desire to stop the sale and demolition of social housing completely and to renegotiate the agreements made between the municipality and housing corporations earlier this year. This agreement states that the number of social housing owned by corporations has to decrease by 2 thousand homes each year on balance. This would be accomplished by selling, demolishing and liberalizing 3 thousand homes and building 1,200 homes. The minimum number of social housing homes available should be 162 thousand, according to the newspaper. The HA feels that the situation has changed due to the increasing demand for social housing on the housing market. The current agreement provides too little housing and adjustments need to be made.