Nadja Jungmann, lecturer of debts at the Hogeschool Utrecht, receives signals from various sides about increasing poverty and rising debts. “Rescuers I speak to are concerned, especially about young adults and self-employed workers. Neighborhood teams have all signals about increasing poverty. These are people who cannot afford food, but there are also concerns about loneliness and stress.”
The government’s aid package helps many people, Jungmann sees. “But it is a package in outline, and there are always people who fall between two stools. Think of the entrepreneur with high rental costs who does receive an allowance for his staff, but hands in his own salary to remain fixed costs. Or someone who worked for a company that went bankrupt. “
Joke de Kock, debt counseling manager at the municipality of Tilburg, expects the big flow towards debt relief to start in a few months. “There are now people who fall back on their income and therefore have to deal with bills that they cannot pay, but it always takes a while before people really report to us,” says De Kock. “This usually only happens after they have been in arrears for a few months and have shifted funds from one side to the other for about three months.”
Wrong stimulus
She hopes people ring the bell early. The municipality of Tilburg also has an agreement with housing associations: if they miss the rent of someone who normally pays, the municipality and the housing association will go after it together. “We try to contact them directly and to be quick. Missing a month’s rent is a very big problem.”
“On the one hand, it is nice that bailiffs are now courteous and that you can get a deferment of your mortgage, but that gives the wrong incentive,” says De Kock. “It all has to be paid back later.”
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