International

It is one of the reasons why there is insufficient space for sheltering asylum seekers: wealthy municipalities who evade sheltering asylum seekers. The top 20 poorest municipalities shelter more than twice as many asylum seekers as the top 20 most wealthy municipalities. The House of Representatives now supports a proposal by SP MP Jasper van Dijk to consider not only the population of a city or village when receiving asylum seekers, but also to look at rich and poor municipalities.

Not only municipalities like Hoogeveen and Heerlen, but richer municipalities like Blaricum and Bloemendaal should also shelter asylum seekers. Passing on the reception of asylum seekers to poor municipalities must stop. That removes all local support for shelter. It has no use and is extremely foolish. That’s why it’s good the House is supporting our plan for a fair allocation.

With the adoption of this proposal for fair and equitable allocation, the so-called 'allocation act' can count on the SP's support. The SP does have a few comments about the implementation of the law.

Wealthy municipalities also have wealthier and less wealthy neighbourhoods. The rich should not then go all out to ensure that an asylum seeker centre is not built next to their villas. We will be on top of this, because once and for all, we’ve had enough of people passing all the problems on to those in the Netherlands who are not well off.

SP is also of the opinion that shelter must be much smaller in scale. In order to maintain support for shelter, it must be set up on a much smaller scale. Hosting hundreds of refugees in a small village destroys all support for shelter. It’s understandable that people worry about this. It is also important that disadvantaged, bothersome asylum seekers remain a responsibility of the state and are not covered by the allocation act.