The legal rules are strict: young people without a permanent address and without work or education do not receive any money to pay for a house and groceries. The idea behind it is to stimulate them to follow training or to start working.
But not all young people succeed in that. Anyone who has accommodation, but no work or education and is under 21, receives 265 euros per month. So no income where you can live and pay for an education. Anyone who finds temporary shelter with a family member or elsewhere encounters a different problem: then the benefit of the person providing shelter will be reduced.
Terribly vulnerable young people
Municipalities now think they have found something to get more young people on track: apply less strict rules for social assistance benefits for those who are at risk of getting out on the street. In the long term they even think that this will save money, because the young people may be saved from long aid journeys if they have a home and a job earlier. The caretaker cabinet is making 200 million euros available to help municipalities with projects.
State Secretary Blokhuis tells the NOS that he hopes that municipalities will really start thinking “out of the box”. “These are terribly vulnerable young people”. For example, he is thinking of temporarily increasing benefits or helping with a postal address. “If you sell no to all young people who need a postal address, you should not be surprised that there are now about 10,000 homeless young people walking around,” says Blokhuis.
“Municipalities have the freedom to work on solutions in this way,” says Blokhuis. But municipalities in turn say that it is not that simple.
Trauma and psychological problems
Blokhuis, together with Queen Máxima, visited the Spaarneproject in Haarlem online today, where they guide young people, among other things, by linking them to a so-called youth director, who helps them look for an education or work.
Young people showed their place of residence to the Queen and State Secretary. They also explained the problems they all encounter. Such as 17-year-old Athicha, who was in secondary vocational education when she was evicted from home. She was unable to finish school, is homeless and suffers from trauma and psychological problems.
On the Spaarneproject she is given a temporary place to live and she is guided in the search for education or work. The queen wanted to know how things are going now. Athicha said that she can carefully think about a future again, looking for something to hold on to.
Reduce to zero
Fourteen municipalities have indicated that they want to participate in projects. They endorse the goal of reducing the number of homeless youth to zero by the end of the year. On Monday, the House will talk about the problems and it looks like a majority of the House will also want to change the strict rules.
For example, the SP wants to change the age of the so-called cost-sharing standard. This determines that the more adults you share a household with, the less assistance you will receive per person, because you can share the housing costs. The idea is to make this standard no longer count for young people under 27. Until now, D66 and ChristenUnie were stuck to coalition agreements that cannot be changed, but these parties now support the SP motion. As far as D66 is concerned, this will only apply to vulnerable young people.
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