Housing experts Cody Hochstenbach and Hans de Geus made mincemeat of the Dutch public housing policy of the past decades in Buitenhof. “This was not a natural disaster, but a political policy,” said city geographer Hochstenbach.
Hochstenbach and De Geus pointed to the annual multi-billion dollar subsidy for homeowners: the mortgage interest deduction. For example, money is constantly flowing from poor tenants, who receive much less housing benefit, to rich homeowners.
Homeowners often have lower housing costs than renters. An unsavory situation: renting must once again become a more affordable alternative to buying, according to journalist De Geus.
According to Hochstenbach and De Geus, the housing protest does not come a day too soon. VVD ministers have only made the situation worse. Much more was built in previous decades than in the past ten years under Rutte – despite all the ‘build, build, build’ talk of Daniel Koerhuis. “The VVD has failed miserably,” says Hochstenbach.
The urban geographer believes that there is now mainly a distribution issue in the ailing housing market. People with a small budget have little chance, while living is a right according to the constitution.
This is why #residential protest:
* Doubling homelessness
*A quarter of tenants can barely pay the rent
*Young people are forced to live at home
*Sharp increase in temporary contracts and uncertainty https://t.co/zlyOpqhLLl– Cody Hochstenbach (@CodyHochstenB) September 12, 2021
(Conversation with Hochstenbach and De Geus from minute 33.)
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