Eindhoven wants to receive 400 asylum seekers and status holders as quickly as possible. The Municipality announced it on Monday evening. The location of the shelter is not yet known. Due to the decision, the temporary accommodation in Kanaaldijk-Zuid will remain open for longer until a permanent location is found.
The municipality of Eindhoven awaits a request from The Hague to receive more asylum seekers soon. This request is now anticipated. The city council says it ‘sees the shelter as its moral and social duty’. The municipality hopes to finally be able to accommodate the 400 asylum seekers and status holders in up to two locations. It originally planned to accommodate 250 people, but given the increased need, it is no longer sufficient, explained Mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Talk about a ‘good first step’. Together with the regional municipalities, a broader plan is now being worked on.
Flexible use of reception areas
For the temporary reception, Eindhoven will use flexible reception places. For example, they can also be used to host other people, such as students. This is possible, for example, if the number of asylum seekers decreases again.
Eindhoven is already temporarily receiving 96 asylum seekers at Kanaaldijk-Zuid. Five housing units are used for this shelter, which have been placed on the old environmental road. Twenty people can be accommodated in each unit. The temporary deal expires at the end of December.
It now appears that the temporary shelter will stay open longer. The municipality discussed this with the representatives of local businessmen and residents. A letter was also distributed door to door in the neighborhood.
Entrepreneurs at Eindhoven’s De Kade business park were furious earlier this year when it became known that the emergency winter shelter for the homeless was to become a temporary shelter for asylum seekers. “The municipality had promised that the housing units would be removed if the winter shelter closed in April,” Bjorn Seringen of the employers’ association said at the time. “Now we hear that asylum seekers are arriving. This was not the deal.”
“Good cooperation with COA and local residents”
According to councilor Samir Toub, months later, things are going “very well in this locality”. According to him, this is due to the good cooperation between the AOC and local residents. “I hope this represents how things will be in and around the new shelter.”
Dijsselbloem is also confident. According to him, there was and still is wide acceptance in the city. The mayor also counts on the government not only by literally contributing. He would like laws and regulations to allow for rapid integration: “If it’s up to us, asylum seekers and status holders will learn the Dutch language right away and the children will go to school right away. In short: integration and participation from day one, including paid work. We therefore make an emphatic appeal to The Hague so that this is possible and does not raise any kind of bureaucratic problem or political objection. We have learned this from welcoming Ukrainian refugees: the sooner you get to work, the better for everyone. Especially since we also need more workers in our region”.
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