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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jon Henley in Amsterdam

‘Everything’s just … on hold’: the Netherlands’ next-level housing crisis

A banner hanging from the upper windows of  building on a busy street in Amsterdam bears the message ‘fuck the housing market’. Pedestrians and cyclists pass by in the foreground
A banner in Amsterdam bearing the message ‘fuck the housing market’. Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian

It started maybe 10 years ago, says Tamara Kuschel. Since the 1970s, the charity she works for in Amsterdam, De Regenboog, has run day shelters for homeless people – typically, people with serious addiction and mental health issues.

Then, in about 2015, a new kind of client began to appear. “They didn’t have the usual problems of homeless people,” Kuschel says. “They had jobs, friends. In every respect, their lives were very much together. But they couldn’t afford a home.”

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