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Access
to homeless sheltersfor
undocumented migrants in the Netherlands
General
According to Fred Stangelaar from Netwerk Religieuzen Voor Vluchtelingen, most migrants don’t end up
in homeless shelters. Those who do tend to lack family or friends with a legal
status they can stay with on their arrival in The Netherlands or could not find
undeclared work which would enable them to rent private accommodation.
Shelters are usually full up and undocumented people
don’t tend to get priority. According to Rian Ederveen from LOS, the mix of
national homeless and migrants is often difficult, with racist attitudes often
coming from the nationals. Undocumented people frequently don’t feel at home
in shelters and go there as a last resort, having no other solution.
Night Shelters
Night shelters are generally more accessible to
undocumented people than long-term shelters. In night-shelters, the only access
condition is to pay between 2 and 5 euros for the bed and to stay no longer than
a few nights. They may be helped for free for a night or two. Only single
persons tend to be helped there (not families).
However, quite different opinions were brought forward
by the different Dutch organizations that were interviewed for this report on
the accessibility of night shelters to undocumented migrants. Some argued that
no distinction was made in these shelters, that anyone could occupy the free
space, while others said that some shelters would completely deny access to
these migrants or give particular priority to the documented homeless. Kitty Van
Bussel from Stichting Vluchteling Als
Naaste, an organization that provides accommodation and medical and legal
help to rejected asylum seekers and people who never entered the asylum
procedure, says that she has minimal contact with night shelters, where she is
only seldom (“certainly not weekly”) able to place people she has no space
to accommodate. All the organizations agree that night shelters are generally
tight in space and that many homeless people end up sleeping on the streets.
This variation in opinions from one organization to the next is most likely due
to the experience and the location of the interviewed organizations.
Long term shelters: the homeless vs the houseless
All Dutch interviewees agreed on the fact that
long-term shelters are generally inaccessible to undocumented people. A general
condition for staying in long-term shelters is to have a residence permit and a
source of income (usually social security).
There are also other reasons why many long term
shelters and homeless organizations are reluctant to open up their services to
undocumented migrants. Indeed these organizations don’t only focus on
providing shelter, but most of all aim to help the homeless people to integrate
anew into their own accommodation and into a profession. A distinction should be
made according to FEANTSA and its member organizations between ‘homeless
persons’ and ‘houseless persons’, the latter are only in need of a roof,
the former need intense professionalised assistance to re-integrate in society.
Because most long term shelters have a specialized working focusing on the
homeless, they do not see it as their task nor their competence to assist
undocumented migrants.
Restricted by funders
Most homeless shelters in the Netherlands aren’t
State owned, but are financed by
the municipalities which receive the money from the central government (the
Welfare Ministry). Whether they help undocumented persons usually depends on the
standpoint of their local authority with regards to helping undocumented people.
Several positive examples of local authorities
providing financial support to shelters to specifically help undocumented
migrants have arisen throughout the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, the local
authority is giving money to undocumented migrants support groups who in turn
pay night shelters to help undocumented rejected asylum seekers. In Eindhoven,
the 5th largest city in the country, shelters house undocumented
migrants when they receive financial support to provide them with appropriate
counseling. In the smaller cities of Zwollen and Enschede, the local authority
pays long and short-term shelters to help undocumented people. In the former,
five families are presently being helped, while in the latter, four people are
being helped.
Although these local practices exist, homeless shelters
are legally not allowed by the national government to help ‘illegal’ people.
An interviewee explained that if shelters were to ask for more financial support
from the government to help the many undocumented people who come to them, the
government would reply that they are helping the wrong people, should get rid of
them and make space for the real homeless people. They thus risk destroying the
image of the homeless sector. For this reason, one avoids speaking publicly on
the help provided to undocumented people within shelters.
Women
A
temporary stay in long-term shelters is occasionally granted to undocumented
migrants whom are considered to be in a particularly vulnerable situation. These
include people with severe medical conditions, people who can difficultly return
to their country, victims of
trafficking, women who divorce a national before three years in The Netherlands,
and pregnant women. In general, single women tend to access long-term shelters
more easily than single men do. This is because many of the women seeking
shelter started off in The Netherlands with a vulnerable situation very
different to that of men.
Pregnant
women may stay in a shelter until the sixth week after giving birth. During this
period they must either arrange a return to their country or find some another
solution.
Some women come to The Netherlands to marry a national
(often through arranged marriage). They usually come from poor villages in
Morocco and Turkey and don’t speak Dutch. These women must stay married for
three years to get a residence permit. So if they ask for a divorce before those
three years, they loose their legal status in the country. When they leave their
husband and seek shelter, they tend to temporarily still have a legal status in
The Netherlands as well as a minimum income necessary to enter the women’s
shelter. Johan Gortworst explains that every women’s shelter that is member of
his homeless umbrella organization, Federatie Opvang, reserves three to four beds for these women.
Nonetheless the demand is much greater.
Other undocumented women who receive a space in
shelters are those who were victims of trafficking.
If they agree to cooperate with an organization fighting against
traffickers, such as The Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking in Women, they get
the right to social security and are provided with accommodation in women’s
shelters until the end of the procedure to find traffickers. After this, their
social help is stopped and they must return to their country of origin where
they may also be in a vulnerable position. Some women victims have started their
own organization because they felt used during the procedure.