On February the 8th, students were given the opportunity to raise their questions and concerns regards the ongoing Maastricht Housing crisis to a various number of parties: there were representatives present of the head department of Student Housing Maastricht, a burgerraadsleden in the Maastricht City Council, the student association Student Housing Now! (SHN) and the director of the Student Service Center. The Housing crisis in Maastricht has been going on for a few years but has intensified throughout the last two especially. Students have to commute to classes, live on the border to another country or even camp in front of Uni, as there are no appropriate living conditions offered to all students who are entitled to exactly that.
The following opening statements were presented by the parties: Student Housing Now, herein further referred to as SHN, represented the interests of the students of Maastricht at stake, be it the current or future students at Maastricht University. The problem has never been as dire as of this year (2021-2022) opened SHN their concerns. There be uncertainty about the improvement of the overall situation plus a discrepancy between the UM policy and municipality policies regards the allocation of students, who is responsible for what and how to solve this issue. SHN proposes that in order to solve this big issue, awareness needs to be raised about the situation and circumstances and pressure needs to be applied to UM and the municipality to take this issue more seriously.
The core problem crystallizes promptly. Thomas Gardien, a member of the City Council of Maastricht, representing the municipality responds that student interests are not represented within the municipality. Next, representatives of UM, namely Margriet Schreuder and Maurice Evers, stipulate the University shall not be in charge to provide student housing, the housing was the responsibility of the municipality, UM however is in charge of communication surrounding housing. Students were responsible for their own housing, not UM. Following this, neither UM nor the municipality sees the responsibility lies with themselves.
The question was asked whether hotels can be involved for a short-term solution to the imminent crisis. Hotels were within this already asked to help out, only a few hotels made space for students in a situation like that. UM already tried to negotiate to get the students a special discount to stay at hotels, however, hotels did not agree to that.
According to UM, the crisis has been going on for 25 years and happens nationwide. Especially Amsterdam and Utrecht have to deal with severe housing problems. Maastricht was originally always known for good student housing opportunities but now the crisis this year is worse than the situation after WWII (nationwide). Gardien suggests ‘overstroomlocaties’, temporary housing locations for people who want to settle in Maastricht, not only for students but for everybody. Also, he introduced the proposal of the 40/40/40 rule, which shall regulate the student housing permits. SHN explains the crisis as a consequence of deliberate national policy how the government advertises housing in the Netherlands for investors, which is currently displayed as to attract investors for offices and not general housing.
UM declared that universities are legally required to accept all eligible students, meaning they cannot decline a student’s application simply due to a housing shortage. However, they want to improve the scientist’s and economists’ predictions regarding the number of incoming students. As SHN correctly annotates UM and the Netherlands, in general, promote themselves as the country to go to for internationals. UM responds with refers to the urge of universities to grow in order to grow the national budget. Usually UM grows about 3.0%, this year it was double the amount.
Closing the conversation Gardien declares that the municipality wants to create awareness about this issue, that students should vote in the upcoming elections if they want to be heard in decisions about housing. UM acknowledges that they should be more detailed in their communication to their prospective students about the housing situation. SHN repeats that it is very unfortunate that a crisis was needed to make a serious effort to solve this issue and further puts forward that student matters should be considered citizen matters
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