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Access to private housing for undocumented migrants in
the Netherlands
All interviewees believe that the private market of large cities is undocumented migrants’ most frequent housing solution after friends and family. Indeed anyone who doesn’t qualify to be housed by the municipality must find its own way to a shelter and mostly refers to private housing, and large cities are the places where most undocumented migrants settle, because of the employment possibilities.
Besides
asylum seekers, many migrants come to The Netherlands for economic reasons and
are not primarily occupied with their status. The priority is to find work to
earn money to survive and/or to send home, the expenses for accommodation are
usually kept as low as possible. However the private accommodation rented to
undocumented migrants is usually at an exploitative price, in a very poor
condition and in an inconvenient location such as above a shop or restaurant.
There is evidence of flats being shared with several other people who have
different working timetables and use the same beds for eight or nine hours sleep
(five to ten beds in a room). It would seem that a large quantity of these
people are from Eastern Europe (Rumania and Bulgaria).
Johan Gortworst from Federatie Opvang believes that the police don’t have the capacity
to control this illegal housing. He considers the police’s actions as a
symbolic opportunity to show the government’s awareness of the problem. For
example the media was called to assist the police invasion of a house rented to
undocumented Bulgarians and Hungarians. They were put on a plane back to their
country, but were back in The Netherlands a few days later.
Rian Ederveen from LOS
explains that the poor private housing conditions also attract the attention of
the public and the media due to the fact that many undocumented tenants spend a
lot of time in visible places such as cafés or cars and on the street because
of the lack of space in their overcrowded flat.