International students face housing shortage in Amsterdam

From the international students that will be joining the UvA in September 2.400 already have a room. But that’s only a little more than half of the total of international students that applied. Another five hundred are on a waiting list. ‘We’re working hard to find extra places for them to live,’ says Annelies van Dijk, a spokeswoman for the UvA. ‘But it’s difficult.’

Students who don’t apply for housing through the university have to find it themselves. But that’s difficult without the right language, resources or network, and more difficult still with what the Dutch Student Union LSVb estimates to be a shortage of 12.000 student houses in Amsterdam. Last year an international student had to ‘live’ between libraries and cafes for three days because he didn’t have a room.

Two thousand houses
The UvA received three times as many international applications for the next academic year, in part because of the start of new English bachelors programmes. Based on this, the Coalitie Kennisstad (a co-operation between educational institutions and housing corporations in Amsterdam), has calculated that the city needs to build an additional two thousand affordable student houses a year until 2025.

The best solution, according to the corporations, would be to start building more houses just outside of Amsterdam like in Amsterdam-Noord or Hoofddorp. But for now, housing corporations come up with creative solutions like the ‘Friends contract’: a shared living space with your own bedroom like in the TV series ‘Friends’.

For international students with questions about housing LSVb and the Erasmus Student Network opened a Housing Hotline.