While the right-wing government in Italy is keeping itself busy, among other things, with one of its favourite wars (the one against squatters), another right-wing government, in Holland, launched yesterday an epochal reform of the market of rentals.
There Wet betaalbare huurwhich we can summarize with “fair rent law”, updates one of the most balanced systems on the continent: with a huge stock of public housing, one of the largest in Europe, and already very strict rules in favor of tenants, this new law raises the ceiling of the points system and effectively increases , social properties of almost 100 thousand units. In Holland, in fact, there is a threshold that divides the regulated market from the free one and this threshold, due to the surge in prices, had become obsolete. It’s great to have a social system to protect tenants from the market and even an ad hoc tribunal (the “huur commissie”) which only deals with rents and disputes between owners and tenants but recently, very few properties fell below the protected threshold.
This ceiling is raised up to rents from 1100 euros per month, calculated on the basis of points not on the value given by the market. Now it was 880 euros. A law that the Dutch real estate world has opposed in every way and which is opposed by 3 out of 4 parties of the new far-right government, led by Geert Wilderswho will take office next week.
But the rule was a strong point of the housing emergency minister of the Rutte government, Hugo de Jongeand truly at the photo finish, in the last session of the Senate before the installation of the new executive the green light.
The housing situation in the Netherlands is of real emergency: the market is skyrocketing, houses cannot be found and young people have started to move again occupy empty properties, following a long tradition in the Netherlands, which the Rutte governments have fought with rules so draconian that they stand out for their cruelty and disinterest in social issues, alongside the Italian security decree.
But, there is always a but in Holland: hitting hard without a credible alternative is not something that is accepted calmly. Politics is forced, at least, to pretend have a solution. And in Italy? In Italy it seems that the war of right-wing newspapers and the government against Ilaria Salis and those who occupy buildings to make up for the lack of solutions, are enough and left over; The leitmotif is to stare at the finger and not waste time with the moon.
Regulating the market with a rent cap? Increase the stock of public housing? (In Amsterdam, one of the richest capitals in the world, public housing accounts for almost 50%) Regulate temporary and emergency rentals? Having a roof over your head is a right, not a privilege and politics has the obligation to intervene.
