Poor households waiting longer to have their homes insulated

Housing associations in the Randstad are still far from reaching the Energy Agreement goal of having an average energy label B on all their homes by the end of this year. And it is especially residents of poorer neighborhoods - who will be most affected by high gas prices - that wait the longest for their homes to be insulated, according to research by Investico and Trouw.

Over 90,000 households in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague live in poorly insulated rental homes. In these three cities, a quarter of all housing association homes have an energy label of D or lower. At least 17,000 households still rent a house with label F or G, which means their homes are hardly insulated, usually with single glazing.

Housing associations that lag behind the national target blame a lack of money and the fact that they own a lot of old buildings. "We want to go faster, but it is simply about money," Susan van der Steen of Haag Wonen, one of the large housing associations in The Hague, said to Trouw. "We have to solve the housing crisis, and we want to keep rents affordable. It is a puzzle how to spend every euro best."

Some large housing associations in Rotterdam expect to only reach an average C energy label by 2025 - four years late.

The federation of Amsterdam housing associations AFWC called it unlikely that every association will achieve the national target due to "old and complicated construction," a spokesperson said to Trouw. "We, therefore, prefer to focus on agreements with the municipality of Amsterdam."