Some 13,000 places needed for asylum seekers in NL
The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum, Seekers (COA) expects to need at least 6,000 additional reception places for asylum seekers in 2022. The COA expects to need 42,000 reception places next year. At the end of December this year, there will be approximately 36,000 reception places, all of which are occupied.
"In addition, 80 percent of the locations that have been realized since September 2021 are temporary, in halls, river ships, and the like. Many agreements already expire in the first and second quarter of 2022," the COA said in a press release. This concerns about 7,000 temporary places, which the COA would prefer to replace with permanent reception places. If the temporary reception places expire, this will mean a shortage of beds for 13,000 asylum seekers.
"In the coming months, we must realize sufficient additional places in time and work on future-proof solutions," said chairman of the COA board Milo Schoemaker. "This is in the interest of our residents, the municipalities, and the COA employees."
In recent months it was often too crowded in the overnight shelter at the application center in Ter Apel. The overnight shelter has room for 275 people, but sometimes hundreds more people slept there. In some cases, that meant sleeping on chairs.
A significant problem is the transfer of refugees to a home because of the large housing shortage in the Netherlands. There are currently 11,000 refugees staying in COA asylum centers. Some 7,000 have been waiting for a home for more than three months. They have a residency permit to stay in the Netherlands, and the intention is to have housing within 14 weeks.
