Linda Dreier | Patrick Kammerzelt | Philipp Ringswirth | Marlene Samhaber | Julia Staufer

The Consequences of the Housing Act 2015 revisited

Compared to the Netherlands as a whole, social housing is more popular in Amsterdam. This is illustrated in the figure below: While half the housing stock in Amsterdam consisted of social rented housing in 2010, the Netherlands’ share of social housing is significantly lower.

Since the housing act of 2015, the Dutch housing market underwent severe changes (see fact 3). The housing associations are decreasing and so is the social rented sector. Furthermore, the associations focus on their core task: providing affordable housing for socially-disadvantaged lower income households. On the other hand, home-ownership and private rent is increasing. (MUSTERD 2017)

Click right and left to see the difference between the social housing stock in 1999 and 2014.

Today we have the situation that housing costs are increasing in the social-rented sector. Generally speaking, this makes access to social housing programs more difficult. Through privatization more social housing stock is moving into the private sector. This means that more social housing is sold. All of this leads to a concentration of poverty within the city. (MUSTERD 2017)

Additionally, those changes in the housing market lead to a socioeconomic change in Amsterdam: Rising social inequality. An ethnic and demographic transformation was caused by a shift in the tenure of dwellings. A general trend of increasing owner occupancy among (second generation) Western, Turkish and ‘other non-Western’ migrant households in the Amsterdam region is revealed. Policies promoting tenure conversions may create an image of an ‘economically sustainable population’ as designed for in urban policies. This will lead to processes of gentrification, especially in regions that have a high claim for housing. (BOTERMAN 2013)