Fmr. official must pay €380,000 for assigning homes intended for homeless to friends
The court ordered a former civil servant of the municipality of Rotterdam to pay a total of €400,000 in compensation for the housing fraud she committed. For a decade, she allowed her family members and friends to live in eight homes intended for homeless people, NU.nl reports.
The former civil servant coordinated the (Z)onderdak project, through which the municipality temporarily rented out homes to homeless people during their reintegration process.
The fraud began in 2015, when the civil servant made a single home available to an acquaintance. By 2024, when the municipality discovered the fraud, she had given eight homes to family members and friends, who paid no rent, expenses, or municipal taxes.
The municipality dismissed the civil servant and demanded compensation for the costs she incurred for the homes. The compensation is intended to cover the rental costs that the municipality would not have had to incur. The municipality had planned to complete the project and terminate the leases on the homes in the event of vacancy. The municipality had rented the homes from four housing corporations.
The court in Rotterdam ruled in the municipality’s favor on Wednesday. The court ordered the woman to pay €380,000 in damages plus €20,000 in legal costs.
