Project Partners
Housing association Rochdale, AmsterdamContact person: Rienk Postuma, Development Manager
Contact person: Clemens Mol, Tenant Advisor
This one-year action research project (January 2018 – January 2019) aimed at developing a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities of establishing residents’ housing co-operatives through partnerships with housing corporations in Amsterdam.
The research followed the process of two ongoing cases of such partnerships and brought in European examples that could shed light on the challenges and possible solutions for establishing and managing resident-led co-operative housing. The main aim was to help Dutch professionals and self-organised tenants’ groups to co-determine suitable governance arrangements for this purpose. The research was led by Prof.dr.ir. Vincent Gruis and Dr Darinka Czischke and included the participation of post-doctoral researcher Carla Huisman and research assistant Stephanie Zeulevoet.
Since 2015, Europe has experienced an unprecedented influx of people fleeing countries facing political turmoil. Upon receiving asylum status, refugees in the Netherlands are currently regionally dispersed and individually housed in public housing. The municipality of Amsterdam has recently adopted an alternative approach, whereby young adult refugees and Dutch young adults are brought together in collaborative housing (Czischke, 2018). This article presents findings from a case study of the pilot project, launched in 2016, which houses over 500 young adults, half refugees and half Dutch together in temporary dwellings. The goal is to provide refugees with social and cultural tools to integrate in the host society by interacting with their peers through collective self-organisation. Compared with more traditional forms of housing refugees, integration through collaborative housing is expected to deliver results. Our study aims to examine this assumption by looking at the daily reality of collaboration and self-organisation amongst tenants in this pilot project, and interrogates how this approach may help the integration process. The analytical framework draws on Ager and Strang’s (2008) core domains of integration, which emphasises the role of social connections in the integration process. An ethnographic research design was adopted, including interviews and participant observation as data collection techniques. Preliminary findings indicate the gradual formation of social connections such as social bonds, social bridges and social links. Ultimately, we expect findings to inform better policies and practices in the field of housing and urban planning that help the integration of young refugees in European societies.
Authors: Darinka Czischke and Carla J. Huisman.
Originally published in the Urban Planning Journal, Vol 3, No 4 (2018): European Cities Planning for Asylum.
The integration of refugees in the Netherlands has been suboptimal for years. After receiving a residence permit, refugees are distributed across the country and dispersed over neighborhoods. However, since the 2015 refugee crisis, the municipality of Amsterdam has adopted a different approach. Here, refugees that have been granted residence live together with Dutch young adults in projects where they share facilities and play a role in managing the project. To what extent can such mixed housing projects help the integration of refugees? The Startblok Riekerhaven, which was the first project, was studied for a year with qualitative research. The findings show that mixed housing projects can stimulate the formation of social connections. In this way they can contribute to the integration of refugees in the Netherlands. Given the suboptimal results of the current dispersal policy, this is relevant for science and policy.