Social housing corporations struggling to tackle housing fraud

Social housing corporations are having a hard time tackling housing fraud due to capacity problems, BNR reports after speaking with the corporations. They, therefore, expect that the housing fraud figures are much higher than reported.

Finding and tackling housing fraud is a specialist and time-consuming work, Woonbron told BNR. Therefore, the housing corporation gives priority to nuisance reports, which are much easier to deal with. Mitros also said it does not have the capacity to deal with all reports of housing fraud. Umbrella organization Aedes confirmed the capacity issues.

Vestia "strongly suspects" that the housing fraud figures are higher in reality. "Because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a home, subletting will increase, for example. The coronavirus period has not helped us as a corporation to detect signals of housing fraud. For example, due to working from home, our employees have been less present in the neighborhood, and there were no home visits."

Aedes thinks that detecting and tackling housing fraud is the joint task of housing corporations, municipalities, and the police. Some municipalities are already working with housing corporations, like Amsterdam working with Rochdale and Groningen with Nijestee, but it is far from the norm.