Trade union presents plan to help homeless migrant workers find new work

The trade union CNV and the Salvation Army have teamed up to help the increasing number of migrant workers who are homeless in the Netherlands find new work or return to their home countries. According to the organizations, about 60 percent of the homeless people in the Netherlands are migrant workers who have lost their jobs. That amounts to almost 10,000 people living in miserable and inhumane conditions, many dying on the streets, the organizations said.

Migrant workers are often housed by their employers. So if they lose their job, they end up on the street. “When migrant workers lose their jobs, they also immediately lose their housing. An increasingly large social problem that is completely unacceptable,” CNV Piet Fortuin said.

CNV and the Salvation Army proposed linking homeless shelters, Regional Work Centers, and municipalities to jointly help migrant workers find work and housing within three weeks, or help them return to their country of origin. Regional Work Centers are a collaboration between municipalities, the benefits agency UWV, and trade unions and are spread throughout the Netherlands. They have been guiding thousands of people from work to work for several years and are uniquely suited to this task, according to the organizations.

“With open borders, employers have complete freedom to bring migrant workers to the Netherlands,” Fortuin said. “But this also includes the responsibility to finance and facilitate housing and guidance to new work.”

Experiments with this approach in six cities are successful, the organizations said. In Eindhoven, for example, the municipality and Salvation Army together have been offering temporary shelter to migrant workers since 2023. In that time, they’ve helped over 250 people - 60 percent found a new job and new housing, and 20 percent chose to return to their country of origin.

The organizations are asking the government to help fund this approach.

Minister Eddy van Hijum of Social Affairs and Employment told NOS that the government is already committed to preventing migrant workers from ending up on the street after dismissal by setting up information and help points throughout the Netherlands. Nine of these points have already been opened and are also connected to the Regional Work Centers, he said. “We are already helping homeless migrant workers there and this will happen in more and more places in the Netherlands.”

Van Hijum said he was pleased with the positive results from the pilots in the six cities, and the Cabinet would look into whether it could structurally finance these pilots.