NOS News•today, 6:45 PM
The Winkelsteeg asylum reception center in Nijmegen will not close completely tomorrow. After the municipality urged the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) to close the municipal emergency reception location on May 1, a maximum of two hundred residents will remain on location. In two weeks they will also be given a different place.
Last year, 1,200 people could visit the location. Because it takes COA a lot of time and effort to find another shelter for all residents, the closure planned for November 1 was postponed twice. There are now still seven hundred asylum seekers staying in Winkelsteeg.
Not humane
Of the five hundred people who have to leave on Wednesday, half will go to hotels. These are status holders, people with a residence permit and the right to a home in the Netherlands. A place is being sought for the other half somewhere else in the country.
Once asylum seekers have received a residence permit, housing must be available within fourteen weeks, but in many cases this is not possible. “We don’t think temporary relocation for two weeks, because by then the COA must have found a place for them, is not humane for these people,” says Mayor Bruls of Nijmegen. “Both local residents and the refugees themselves need a perspective.”
