In the coming days, a total of 500 reception places for asylum seekers will be added. That is what outgoing State Secretary Ankie Broekers-Knol said this evening after a visit to a reception center in Ter Apel. On Wednesday and Thursday, 200 places will be added in Almere, and 300 places in Gorinchem on Friday.
There are currently too few reception places for asylum seekers. The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) warned that the reception in Ter Apel was ‘no longer responsible’. There were 750 people in the night shelter, while there is room for 275.
The extra 500 places will not immediately solve the acute problem in Ter Apel. The problem there is too big for that. According to the State Secretary, it does provide ‘lighting’ and there is more insight into additional reception places from 1 November. In the meantime, she says, ‘very hard’ is working to ensure that more people receive shelter.
Stabilize
Broekers-Knol thinks that the influx of asylum seekers will stabilize or even decrease in the near future. But according to her it is ‘looking into a crystal ball’. “I can’t oversee it.”
Broekers-Knol visited Ter Apel, partly at the request of mayor Jaap Velema of the municipality of Westerwolde, where Ter Apel is located. He had repeatedly asked for help. Additional reception locations, however, appear to be difficult to find.
Municipalities across the country have been asked to look for places where people can be accommodated. Earlier this week, outgoing Minister of Justice and Security Ferd Grapperhaus asked mayors to quickly set up 800 reception places for asylum seekers.
The mayors who are united in the Security Council have promised that they will assist with reception capacity. About 1500 places will be created within two or three weeks, said chairman and mayor of Nijmegen Hubert Bruls.
Utrecht
Utrecht will be able to receive 500 refugees from mid-November. The city is working hard to prepare the emergency shelter in the former Holland Casino building, near the Jaarbeurs. The city already has an asylum seekers center with a structural 600 places.
“Should the need for more crisis shelter persist, we will do everything we can to organize additional shelter places,” said a spokesman for Mayor Sharon Dijksma. “This in collaboration with the region, because we are also urging surrounding regional municipalities to actively realize extra reception places there.”
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