When asylum seekers can finally leave the AZC and are given a home, they are often overjoyed. But then they face the next challenge: how are you going to furnish that house if you have nothing and don’t know many people in the area?
For this there is the so-called furniture budget for status holders, but it is not always enough. A tour of the Omroep Brabant shows that the amounts that status holders receive for furnishing their home differ greatly by municipality. So it really matters which commune you end up in.
If you are lucky, there is already a floor in the house and curtains, but it can also be that the house is still completely bare. To furnish an entire house from head to toe – from the floor and wall paint to the sofa and TV – it takes a good amount of money.
Big differences
In most municipalities, the amount is adjusted according to the size of the household. For example, a single person receives less than a family with three children. Sometimes these are fixed amounts per person, in other cases the amounts depend on the specific situation.
In at least seven municipalities in Brabant, the furniture budget is a gift and the status holders do not have to reimburse the amount. In the municipalities of Alphen-Chaam, Gilze en Rijen, Baarle-Nassau and Oisterwijk you feel more at ease. The residents of the room here receive a gift of 1,847 euros and for an independent person the amount is 3531 euros.
In Alphen-Chaam, Gilze en Rijen and Baarle-Nassau, the status holders also receive money to renovate the house. For example, they receive 332 euros for the living room, kitchen and bathroom and another 134 euros for an extra bedroom.
Amounts not high enough
The furniture budget is also a gift in Tilburg, Hilvarenbeek, Oisterwijk and Oosterhout. In seventeen other municipalities, the amount is partly a gift and partly a loan. In practice, this means that an amount is deducted from the benefit for a certain period. After this period, the residual amount will be exempt.
In thirteen municipalities it is a loan and the entire amount must be repaid. In terms of your design budget, then, it matters which municipality you end up in as the status holder.
But whether it’s a gift or a loan, conversations with various status holders and employees of Refugee Work Helmond show that these amounts are often not high enough.
For example, we spoke to new status holder Mohamad Khalil from Syria. He just got the key to his home in Helmond. “I don’t know yet if I will make it with this amount, but I hope I can get a lot of second hand stuff and luckily they are on hand.”
View below the main differences between the budget for furniture for the beneficiaries in the municipalities of Brabant:
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