The municipalities must also arrange 225 extra reception places per security region. That is a total of 5625 extra places to reduce the pressure on the Ter Apel application center. It has been overcrowded there for months, forcing people to sleep on chairs and in tents.
Homes for status holders
The government is also making 40 million euros available for the construction of homes for status holders. They are entitled to a house, but because of the housing shortage, those houses are not there.
As a result, they are forced to stay in asylum seekers’ centers, which means that they are overcrowded. Sources to the political editors of RTL Nieuws confirm this after reporting by the NOS.
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The government’s promise follows a serious clash with municipalities, Monday during the Security Council. There was a memorandum from the 25 security regions with strong criticism of the approach to the asylum crisis.
‘Forcing a breakthrough’
It states, among other things, that the asylum crisis will not be solved if the cabinet ‘does not come up with a structural adjustment of the current working method and a breakthrough is forced in the asylum chain in the Netherlands.’
The memorandum shows that the municipalities mainly target the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). That organization fails time and again, the local officials write.
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COA is said to have insufficient staff, which means that municipalities have to supply more than they can. The COA is also ‘not in a position to organize medical care at reception locations, as agreed, so that this task also ends up with municipalities’.
Cabinet supplies civil servants
The COA would not comply with agreements, as a result of which municipalities would have to take over tasks. “The municipalities are solving more and more COA implementation problems.”
Because the 25 security regions indicate that they are reaching the limits of their capabilities, the government is offering to provide 30 officials per security region to help. In addition, the government arranges bus transport and medical care.
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