The national action coalition Woonopstand, which organized a large demonstration in Rotterdam in 2021, emphasizes that housing policy in the Netherlands is still failing. It is incomprehensible that so much unaffordable new construction is being built, while a hundred thousand people are homeless and hundreds of thousands more households live in too expensive, insecure or temporary housing. To tackle the acute housing crisis, affordable new construction and expansion of the social rental sector are necessary.
Bay House: symbol for failed housing policy
Bay House with its 110 unaffordable apartments symbolizes the failed housing policy that creates housing inequality and growing insecurity. That right here the apartment 'The Box' was sold for almost 10 million makes it painfully clear where the priorities of administrators lie: not in building as many affordable homes as possible for people who do not have their own place to live, but in making the city attractive for the rich and in making profits for project developers and investors like Frame Real Estate. Bay House is located between the Katendrecht and Afrikaanderwijk districts in South Rotterdam, where the municipality of Rotterdam has been pursuing an aggressive gentrification policy for years that drives people out of their homes and breaks up communities. It was not without reason that five warned United Nations Special Rapporteurs in 2021 for the disastrous consequences of Rotterdam's housing policy.
Housing revolt demands a radically fair housing policy
With this action, Woonopstand follows up the housing protests that were held throughout the Netherlands in 2021-22. The Housing Protest occupied in October 2023 the office of the Association of Institutional Investors in Real Estate (IVBN) and called for expropriation. More actions will follow soon.
Housing revolt demands a radically just housing policy:
- Prioritize ending homelessness and preventing precarious and overpriced housing.
- Invest in widely accessible public housing: build 100% socially and affordable and stop the demolition, sale and liberalization of social housing.
- Expropriate all private landowners and slum landlords: democratize ownership and decision-making about housing and support cooperative housing. Cities, neighborhoods and homes must be in the hands of the people who live there.
- Stop the gentrification policy and treat renting and purchasing as equal.
- End the financialization of housing and land: homes for people not for profit
Remove the profiteers of the housing crisis from anonymity!
Call to solidarity organizations, activists and other sympathizers: remove the profiteers of the housing crisis from anonymity! Call for the expropriation of private landowners and slum landlords. Download the image pack and copy and paste this text on your social media channels.
For press contact, please contact us residential stand@disroot.org
This action was made possible by the housing movement and the Alert Fund for Youth
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