Woonopstand

On June 29, the association council of the Woonbond in Utrecht will make a decision about signing the national demolition and renovation statute. The national housing movement Woonopstand rejects this statute and will therefore call on the members of the association council with a flyer campaign on June 29 not to sign the statute, under the motto “Tenants do not want tick-the-box participation”. Woonopstand demands that the Woonbond renegotiate the demolition and renovation statute. Woonopstand previously sent this letter to the association council of the Woonbond.

Woonopstand will take action against Dutch real estate profiteers at the national real estate fair Provada on June 11 at 1 p.m. Parasitic real estate investors, private (large) landowners, slum landlords and other predatory investors come together here. They make the lives of many hundreds of thousands of people miserable. Participants in this fair are responsible for all kinds of abuses in public housing. Insecurity, flexibilization, evictions, unaffordability, fraud, gentrification, you name it. On June 11, they will negotiate, also together with municipalities and government agencies, about the future of our living environment. The consequences of this public-private partnership are destroying lives and making people homeless. That has to stop!

Woonopstand was astonished to learn of the violent police actions in Amsterdam and Utrecht against its own students and teachers. They peacefully protested against the ties of the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University with academic institutions in Israel. The demonstrators rightly demand that Dutch universities sever these ties, because the academic world in Israel is part of the institutional structure that oppresses the rights of Palestinians and has turned Israel into an apartheid state.

Woonopstand consists of a national coalition to which various housing action groups from all over the country are affiliated. We support and co-organize actions and initiatives throughout the country, and we can always use more help with that. Would you like to volunteer a few hours a week or a month to strengthen the housing movement in the Netherlands? Then let us hear from you!

Hey you!

Can't find an affordable home either?
Do you also find the current housing policy scandalous?
Did you know that in the Netherlands there are now more than 25,000 people without a home?

We are done with the annual rent increase! The maximum rent is increased every year without landlords considering whether this is necessary. This year it is up to 5.8%. That's 30 euros extra per month, which makes a huge difference for some. In these expensive times it is important that there is enough left after paying the rent for other necessary expenses!

Are you also tired of mold homes? The high energy bill, the draft, the overdue maintenance? That there could still be a rent increase of 5.8 %? And that many social rental properties are still being sold? Speak out and join the march!

For this weekend we, a group of young people looking for housing, occupied an empty Heimstaden apartment on the Esdoornstraat in Den Bosch. We decided to do this because the waiting lists and housing crisis are enormous and we now need housing. We can no longer watch as international locust landlords privatize our public housing, put social housing up for sale or rent it out with insecure and overpriced leases.

On Sunday, April 7, the Hague squatters' movement announced the squatting of a döner shop with upstairs apartments on the Spui, which had been vacant for years. The building that ex-CDA board member Atom Zhou purchased at the end of last year has been rotting for years. This while tens of thousands of buildings are empty, hundreds of thousands are looking for a home, homeless shelters are overflowing and people are dying as a direct result of living on the street. Our housing rights continue to lose out to the property rights of a small group of investors, slum landlords and speculators who benefit from scarcity, housing insecurity and vacancy. With this action we call on the city council to take far-reaching crisis measures to guarantee housing rights, through expropriation, introduction of a vacancy ordinance and lifting the squatting ban.