The run on cheap domestic help via the municipality must end, the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) wants. VNG calls on municipalities to be stricter with applications and to look at income. In doing so, they seek the limits of the law.
Since the beginning of last year, there is no income-related personal contribution to household help via the municipality. Anyone who can no longer do the housework themselves receives help at a rate of 19 euros per month. This is regulated in the Social Support Act (Wmo).
Domestic help
This scheme seems to be counterproductive, because many households with higher incomes also make use of this aid. As a result, municipalities have to spend much more on household help and they are faced with financial problems. VNG therefore calls on municipalities to deal differently with applications for domestic help from now on.
Chairman of the VNG Committee on Care, Youth and Education Sven de Langen mentions four things they will urge municipalities to do. They advise municipalities to introduce waiting lists for higher incomes. They also want to include the applicants’ financial strength in the award. In addition, they can start trial proceedings to have a judge decide who is entitled to what. Finally, they want no extra money to be allocated to household help from 2022. On is on.
Rise in applications
Early this year EenVandaag, together with the VNG, conducted research into the subscription rate in the Wmo. This showed that no less than 94 percent of the municipalities considered it a very bad measure to use a single rate and not allow income to play a role. Last year, almost all municipalities saw an increase in requests for domestic help.
A recently released monitor confirms the picture. Some municipalities have seen applications increase by up to 80 percent. After unsuccessful talks with the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport about compensation for the incurred costs, the measure for the VNG is complete. “It has been thrown over financially,” says De Langen. And that causes a lot of anger.
Also read
More requests by people from ‘more expensive’ zip codes
In Krimpen aan den IJssel they also see the requests for domestic help rising. At the end of 2018, before the subscription rate was introduced, they provided household help to 574 households. Last March the counter was at 800. This increase is mainly due to requests from people from ‘the more expensive’ postcodes, says councilor Hugo van der Wal.
The councilor is afraid that in the long run he will no longer be able to meet the requests of the people who really need it, it could also be at the expense of facilities such as the library or the petting zoo. Van der Wal therefore thinks the appeal of the VNG is a good idea. He also wants to take the financial situation of people into account.
Lawsuits
But first, he wants to make a moral appeal to people who apply: “Ask yourself, Do you really need this?” In addition, he seriously considers rejecting people who in his eyes are too wealthy for it. Such a decision can be challenged by the applicants, but the Krimpen alderman does not shy away from that.
“Let a judge decide for whom the help is intended”. That would be a so-called trial process. It remains to be seen whether that will really happen, and when.
Also read
– .
