The Netherlands should urgently assert the right to adequate housing for all: UN expert

THE HAGUE (21 December 2023) – The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, called urgent attention to the need to assert and protect the right to adequate housing for all in the face of the housing crisis in the Netherlands. He warned that in its efforts to address the acute housing crisis it has been facing, the Netherlands should arrest the demolition of structurally sound social housing, observe climate change and energy transition goals, and put in place systems to ensure adequate housing for all, without discrimination.

“The housing crisis is real. But too often migrants and foreigners are blamed for it. I want to clearly say: the housing crisis is not a migration crisis,” Rajagopal said in an end of mission statement as he concluded an 11-day visit at the invitation of the Government. “It is a crisis resulting from a series of poor policy choices, and overall, from a lack of enforceable legal recognition of the right to adequate housing.”

In the assessment of the Special Rapporteur, the housing crisis in the Netherlands is due to an absence of a human rights approach to housing including access to justice; fragmentation of housing policy across and between government ministries and municipalities, as well as lack of coordination, and poor governance of social housing providers, among others. While social housing in the Netherlands is to be commended as a precious heritage, which should be preserved and expanded, its governance needs a basic restructuring to ensure greater accountability.

“Housing is a human right. Housing is not a commodity or charity from government or anyone else. The Netherlands needs a paradigm shift towards recognising this,” the Special Rapporteur highlighted.

The Special Rapporteur observed that this lack of recognition and a rights-based approach to housing has led to several important protection gaps when it comes to the right to housing of specific groups.

“They are too many to name, but I will try. Among them are young adults, students, older people, economically weaker individuals, people with disabilities, non-western communities, migrant workers, undocumented migrants – especially women with children; refugees, asylum seekers and persons under temporary protection, as well as caravan dwellers,” Rajagopal said.

“In addition, the entire region of Groningen/Eemsdelta has been left behind without much benefit-sharing from the oil industry, whose revenues were also used to develop the system of social housing,” explained the expert. “Peoples’ grievances are slowly being recognised but there is much more to be done to deliver redress, compensation and actually closure and healing for these people,” the UN expert said.

“I am inspired by the resilience and innovativeness of the Dutch people, who have come together to face adversity, such as after the domicide in Rotterdam during World War II, and after regular floods that have endangered the country for centuries. I have no doubt that they have the resourcefulness to take on the housing crisis as well, in the same spirit,” the expert said.

“There are often clear good intentions to address housing problems. But as one important national level authority told me: ‘There is goodwill in government but no power to execute good ideas’. “We have to see results, not just plans on paper,” Rajagopal said.

Mr. Balakrishnan Rajagopal assumed his function as Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing on 1 May 2020. He is Professor of Law and Development at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A lawyer by training, he is an expert on many areas of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights, the UN system, and the human rights challenges posed by development activities.

Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.