Woonopstand

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.

The municipality of Rotterdam will meet on March 14 to discuss the new housing vision.

The national action coalition Woonopstand, which organized a major demonstration in Rotterdam in 2021, emphasizes that the new housing vision of the municipality of Rotterdam is still failing. That is why the Woonopstand will take action against the new housing vision at City Hall on March 14 at 8 p.m. in collaboration with the Precaire Housing Association (BPW).

From July 1, the housing associations Haag Wonen, Staedion and Hof Wonen plan to increase rents by 5.3%, the highest rent increase in 30 years! For many people, this means an increase in charges of more than €30 per month, or €360 per year! An action coalition of SP The Hague, BPW The Hague, The Hague City Party and Wij Refuse the Rent Increase is therefore demanding a multi-year rent freeze in order to achieve structural tax relief for tenants in poverty in The Hague!

2023 was a year of increasing social inequality, xenophobia, and repression of social movements and minorities in Europe. It has also been a year in which having a roof over your head has become self-evident for fewer and fewer people. That is why, together with the European Action Coalition, we are calling for a week of decentralized housing actions throughout Europe! Organize and mobilize!

12/01/24 – Dear supporters, we hope that this invitation reaches you in good health. In response to the impending rent increases, which are the highest in 30 years, we call on all tenants to unite and participate in our national action meeting on February 3 in Den Bosch. Together we can make a difference in the fight for affordable housing.

Message via Woonprotest Utrecht | It has now been almost two years since we demonstrated en masse on the Jaarbeursplein for our right to live. It was the start of Woonprotest Utrecht. The housing shortage has gotten completely out of hand and now politicians finally seem to be waking up a bit. The change comes in very small steps. Two years later, a number of things have changed, for example the landlord levy has been abolished and Utrecht has a vacancy ordinance.

The national action coalition Woonopstand presents its vision document, a blueprint for a radically just approach to the created housing crisis in the Netherlands. The right to decent housing is still being violated on a large scale by the government, as the UN rapporteur also confirmed after his visit to the Netherlands.

On November 18, 2023, Woonopstand took action at the luxury new construction project Bay House in Rotterdam. In the early morning, a banner was attached to the building with the text 'Recapture the neighborhoods, expropriate the rich'. Woonopstand thus makes visible the profiteers of the housing crisis: the project developers, investors and the large landowners who have turned housing into a revenue model. In collaboration with De Rode Lap, we had the slogan of the banner printed on stickers, so that everyone can now help make visible the countless unaffordable new construction projects that are currently being built. Because while systematic human rights violations are taking place by undermining our right to live, making homelessness an increasing problem and waiting lists for social housing increasing, construction is mainly done for the rich.