Integrating refugees through ‘flexible housing’ policy in The Netherlands

Abstract

The Dutch government recently introduced ‘flexwonen’ (flexible housing) to accommodate refugees, with policymakers encouraging housing suppliers to rent modular houses under temporary contracts. These housing practices, nonetheless, ostensibly conflict with integration policy goals, as integration requires stability. Building on an analysis of policy discourses and interviews with central government and municipal actors, our research adopts a capability-based perspective to assess how policymakers and housing suppliers evaluate housing and integration prospects and securities. Our findings illustrate how national policy discourses emphasise opportunities offered through flexible housing, but also how the actual needs and unique circumstances of those being housed are overlooked. Consequently, local policy actors and housing providers report that they struggle with the implications of uncertain living conditions, with some refugees adapting better than others. This study underscores the importance of considering refugees’ ‘capabilities for integration’ in accommodation policies at all levels of governance.

KEYWORDS: :

• Housing policy
• integration
• refugees
• capability approach
• temporary accommodation

Introduction

Central governments and local administrations across Europe struggle to balance urgent and long-term migration challenges (ECRE, 2014; Eurocities, 2016). While dealing with the daily arrival of refugees and asylum seekers, they need to establish infrastructure to integrate newcomers and ensure long-term social cohesion. Finding accommodation for refugees and asylum seekers¹ is a challenge in many EU cities, especially where housing markets are already tight. Refugees have had to compete with other vulnerable groups for the same limited, affordable housing stock (Doomernik & Ardon, 2018; Eurocities, 2016; Soederberg, 2019). This problem became especially pronounced during the refugee crisis in 2015 when the number of forcibly displaced migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq fleeing to Europe swelled. In 2022, this issue again came to the fore as attention turned to accommodating those displaced by conflict in Ukraine.

In countries like Germany and the Netherlands, flexible forms of accommodation have recently been presented as a solution to hampered access to refugee accommodation (Eurocities, 2016, p.13). Flexible housing in this case refers to housing with a temporary component: short-term tenure contracts, temporary locations or buildings with a fixed period of use. The Netherlands recently incorporated ‘flexwonen’ (flexible housing) as an explicit part of their strategy to ramp up housing production and accommodate target groups, such as refugees, who urgently need housing but do not (yet) have access to a stable home. Although flexible housing comes in many different forms, this policy most often results in small modular apartment buildings with units rented out to tenants on a temporary basis (Groot et al., 2022).

Flexible housing in the Netherlands can be distinguished from the related concepts of short-term housing and reception centres, in that it offers unfurnished accommodation where the renter lives independently for several years (usually two-year or a five-year) under a fixed-term rental contract. It also differs from emergency housing services for refugees, such as those found in Greece, for example (see Kourachanis, 2021), as in the Dutch case, refugees are usually accommodated alongside other types of residents, and they enjoy the freedom to move around independently and host guests. Flexible housing projects can be realised quickly and at volume for heterogeneous target groups. As such, they present policymakers and housing providers with means to quickly supply accommodation for refugees. However, accommodating refugees is more than just about providing shelter. Planning procedures for refugee housing are interconnected with local policy goals for social sustainability, as a home provides a necessary basis for social integration (Stepanova & Romanov, 2021). In this context, flexible housing projects offer suboptimal housing solutions as a lack of stability and control over one’s housing situation negatively impacts chances for integration (Coates et al., 2013; Huijnk et al., 2021).

Building flexible accommodation for refugees is thus taking place within a context of tension between short-term needs (providing shelter) and long-term social goals (integration). Policymakers face the complex task of reconciling these conflicting objectives, and their decisions can influence the integration prospects of refugees. This evokes the following research question: in what ways do actors involved with flexible housing policy and provision perceive the role of flexible housing in enhancing integration-related capabilities among refugees? By ‘integration-related capabilities,’ we mean the actual capacity of individuals to participate in their new environment in a way that aligns with their individual needs and preferences. This concept is derived from the capabilities approach developed by Sen (1979, 2005) and Nussbaum (2006, 2011).

Following on from its conceptual development in housing research (e.g. Batterham, 2020; Coates et al., 2013; Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2020), we argue that looking at flexible housing through the lens of capabilities, challenges us to not just think about housing as an end in itself, or as a means to other goals—as is conventional in classical welfare economics—but to also consider how individual and environmental factors impact people’s ability to actualise these opportunities (Kimhur, 2020). By framing housing as a facilitator of individual capabilities, the approach underscores the importance of not only providing shelter but also fostering an environment that empowers individuals to become part of their new host society.

The Netherlands provides a particularly insightful case, not only because of its increased engagement with refugee settlement in recent years and the political contention that has surrounded it, but also because of its particular take on flexible housing provision which has been shaped in a wider policy environment featuring sector restructuring, shifting demand and diminishing housing affordability (Hochstenbach & Ronald, 2020). Whilst not an exemplary social democratic regime (Hoekstra, 2003), Dutch housing provision is highly regulated and institutionalised, with non-profit social providers continuing to dominate production (Boelhouwer & Priemus, 2014; Van Gent & Hochstenbach, 2020). It has also been increasingly exposed to intense price pressures, making the Netherlands a critical point of contrast for understanding the dynamics of integration, regulation and planning for both economically liberal and social democratic contexts and regimes.

The paper is structured as follows: the next section sets out the central concepts, exploring the connection between accommodation and integration using the capabilities approach, framing it through a set of sub-questions. The subsequent section introduces our study design, followed by an introduction to the Dutch policy context. We then delve into our data analysis to illustrate the interplay between discourse at different governance levels, and the entwining of refugee integration with the provision of flexible housing. The paper concludes by reflecting on how different stakeholders perceive flexible housing’s contribution to fostering integration processes and enhancing capabilities among refugees.

Accommodation and integration from a capability perspective

Because this research is situated on the interface of two policy and research domains - housing and migrant integration—here, we briefly reflect on what integration means and its relationship to housing. While widely used in political discourse, ‘integration’ is an ambiguous term, with varied meanings. Academic literature emphasises the complexity inherent in the integration process’s different socioeconomic, legal, political and cultural dimensions (Entzinger & Biezeveld, 2003; Korac, 2003). Being able to integrate is vital to building a life in a new country and is often articulated as a primary concern of governments regarding refugees. The problem of how to approach it is both conceptual and practical. Integration can be considered as a linear transition, but is also a multi-dimensional process involving both migrants and host societies, contexts and cultures (Bakker et al., 2016). In our research, we approach integration as structural integration, expecting a growing participation of newcomers in society’s institutions, i.e. labour and housing markets (Phillips, 2006). This involves vulnerable newcomers learning and engaging in activities required by policy (e.g. enter education, apply for jobs, learn the local language, and building up a social network). Housing, in the context of integration, fulfils two roles: it acts both as a means to provide a secure foundation for integration and as an end in itself by facilitating participation in the housing market.

This paper uses the capabilities approach as a framework to examine the anticipated integration outcomes expressed by stakeholders engaged in flexible housing policy and provision. The capabilities approach has been acknowledged as a well-grounded, valuable and critical interdisciplinary framework for considering the role of housing in people’s development and well-being (Kimhur, 2020, p. 273; Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2020, p. 295). While the foundations of this approach have been pioneered and developed by Sen (1979, 2005), Nussbaum (2006, 2011) has significantly contributed to the development of the theory and its application to social justice. The core focus of the capability approach is on what people can effectively do and be: their capabilities (Robeyns, 2003, p. 5). Sen (1979) asserts that policy addressing welfare and well-being should focus on these capabilities and on removing obstacles (facilitating more freedoms), enabling people to live the kind of lives they want to lead and be the person they want to be.

A focus on capabilities provides a more nuanced assessment of an individual’s quality of life compared to the classical welfare economic or utilitarian focus on possessions (resources) or subjective well-being. This approach also considers ‘conversion factors', representing external and internal elements influencing the transformation of resources into capabilities, thus determining an individual’s ability to seize opportunities. It takes into account the individual’s capacity to utilise means. Realised capabilities are referred to as ‘functionings’ in the capability approach.

The approach can be specifically explained in context of housing. For example, a refugee, who has been granted status and has been in the Netherlands for a while, might be in the position to become a homeowner (a capability), something she aspires to. When she actually buys a house, this capability is realised, and ‘being a homeowner’ becomes a functioning. The chances for realising this achievement positively or negatively depend upon means (e.g. money, assets, debts) and opportunities (e.g. houses being for sale), as is understood in classical welfare economics. The capabilities approach adds that conversion factors are important as they shape the capability achievement of individuals. Conversion factors can be personal (e.g. being a good negotiator, or being good at home improvements), social (e.g. preferences of the seller), and environmental (e.g. being able to partake in viewing). Moreover, the approach explicitly considers that individuals make different choices, depending on their values.

Despite more sceptical approaches concerning its practical value (Batterham, 2020; Foye, 2021; McCallum & Papadopoulos, 2020), Kimhur (2020, 2022), advances the application of the capabilities approach in housing, arguing that the philosophical concept of capabilities can be translated to measures that are tangible for policy practice. In the context of housing inequality, for example, we can consider measures addressing housing opportunities, securities, and abilities. Our research in the Dutch context advances the application of this approach by connecting housing to capabilities in a different policy field: integration, for which housing (in general) can be both a means and an end. Having shelter, understood as a safe environment to retreat, is a basic human need that refugees aspire to. Moreover, ‘housing integration’ can be understood as part of structural integration, meaning that newcomers are able to access good quality, affordable accommodation that meets their housing needs (Phillips, 2006). Buying a house, as such, could be considered an integration related end. But living in a flexible house, characterised by its temporariness, could be interpretated as both an end (being housed in a home society) as well as a means (being able to do other things related to integration).

To address our primary research question, we draw specifically upon concepts from the capabilities approach to look beyond commodities and opportunities, and try to understand the mechanisms related to housing that might explain integration outcomes: conversion factors determining whether opportunities become available to people. This raises a number of empirical sub-questions. Whether discourses surrounding flexible housing policy identify the flexible home as a means for refugees to achieve different capabilities associated with integration, or as a goal in itself? How does the temporal character of flexible housing feature, and to what extent are individual conversion factors considered, in flexible housing policy? Do different stakeholders in this policy have different or even competing takes on how flexible housing impacts refugees integration related capabilities? These questions matter because how accommodations are designed, planned, and managed is influenced by how involved actors define their use, impacting dwellers. This paper focuses on the perspectives of key actors in housing and integration processes, not the experiences of refugees. Our discussion focuses on capabilities and conversion factors, exploring the elements shaping the transformation of resources into capabilities and providing insights into broader dynamics influencing integration outcomes.

Study design

We followed an exploratory, inductive approach in understanding Dutch policies on, and practices of, flexible housing provision for refugees. We began exploration of this quickly developing policy area in the summer of 2021 (i.e. during Covid) initiating several (online) scoping interviews with actors engaged at organisations involved with flexible housing on a national level: the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK), the Expertise Centre Flex Housing, the state funded knowledge institute Platform 31, the national association of housing associations (AEDES), the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG), the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), the Authority housing associations (Aw), and the Social Housing Guarantee Fund (WSW). We also regularly attended knowledge exchange meetings, organised by these parties.

Following on from these insights on what flexible housing in the Netherlands entails, the analysis focused on how the capabilities of refugees are addressed in public discourses on flexible housing provision. Policy documents from the central government level and in two of the largest municipalities in the Netherlands, Amsterdam and The Hague, formed the main input for this analysis. Additionally, we conducted interviews with experts from the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) and the Dutch Council for Refugees to deepen our understanding of what housing means for the Dutch asylum and integration system. We also consulted with local policymakers and housing suppliers in both case cities in addressing how national policy goals are translated to local policies and practice. Table 1 provides an overview of interview respondents and the policy documents we engaged with in the course of our research.

Table 1. Policy documents and interviews informing the analysis.

National level	Municipal level
Documents Ministry of General Affairs (2022). Parliamentary letter on Flexible Housing. Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom (2022) and Ministry of Justice and Security (2021). Final report: Wind against tide Ministry of Justice and Security (2021). Yearly report: State of Migration 2021 Inter-Administrative Taskforce Improving Vulnerable Target Group Accommodation Policy (2021). Advisory report: A home for everybody Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom (2022). Policy programme A home for everybody	Municipality of Amsterdam (2019). Together towards sustainable integration: Policy framework refugees Amsterdam 2019-2022. Municipality of Amsterdam (2021). Yearly report integration of refugees in Amsterdam 2020. Municipality of Amsterdam (2022a). Program Accommodation for Vulnerable Target groups 2022. Municipality of Amsterdam (2022b). Progress report 2021 Programme Accommodation for Vulnerable Target groups. Municipality of The Hague (2016). The Hague’s approach to refugees. Municipality of The Hague (2017). Monitor refugees The Hague: One year of our approach. Municipality of The Hague (2021). Breakthrough plan accommodating refugees and care patient groups.
Interviews COA: Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (one team leader accommodation logistics) Dutch Council for Refugees (one policy officer integration)	Municipality of The Hague (two policymakers housing) Municipality of Amsterdam/ Association of Netherlands Municipalities (one policymaker housing working for both institutes) Housing Association The Hague (one rental broker, one project employee) Housing Association Amsterdam (one project manager flexible housing, one project employee, one housing concept developer)

Combining discourse analysis of policy documents on different government levels with interviews with stakeholders offers potentially more comprehensive and nuanced insight on this emerging policy paradigm in the Netherlands. The distinct perspectives offered by sources at different levels of policy development and implementation allow for a comparative examination of expressed perceptions and expectations. Policy documents offer insights into formalised and institutional perspectives and goals, while the interviews provide context and capture the experiences of the actors involved in policymaking and housing allocation. This helps to reveal not only the intended goals outlined in policy documents but also how these policies are interpreted and experienced on the ground. As such it offers valuable insights into the connections between policy intentions, practical implementation, and the enhancement of refugees’ capabilities within the housing context.

The cases of Amsterdam and The Hague were selected as a means to illustrate the scope municipalities have in shaping flexible housing provision for refugees. The cases were specifically selected as more urban locales that are more deeply engaged with this policy. The dense urban fabric characteristic of both cities make finding new housing locations within municipal perimeters a particular challenge. Comparative differences between cases also provide a reference point. Amsterdam, for example, has a much tighter housing market and more intense demographic pressures. These municipalities have also dealt with refugee housing in different ways: Amsterdam has created large flexible housing projects for refugees in the past, while The Hague only recently started to focus on housing this specific target group.

National and municipal documents concerning strategic policies in these domains reflect and reinforce normative frameworks that form the basis for creating refugee accommodation. Through policy discourses, policy actors exercise power by establishing particular narratives that align with political objectives (Jacobs, 2006). Our analysis of the policy documents and interview discourses focused on the formulation of goals related to refugee integration and the role that housing is expected to play in achieving these objectives.

To understand the anticipated outcomes of integration articulated by stakeholders in both policy documents and interviews, we employed the capabilities approach as our analytical framework. One challenge in applying a capabilities lens arises from the fact that stakeholders we encountered did not recognise this framework, and did not express any expectations about capabilities in documents or in interviews. Consequently, our analysis sought expressions alluding to the expected contributions of flexible housing in general—whether they serve as means or ends; and if means, to what ends precisely? We further explored the data for expressed concern for, or experiences with, negative effects of flexible housing. In doing so, we investigated actors’ perspectives on factors that contributed to realised projects being dysfunctional or ineffective. These expressions offer valuable cues regarding desired outcomes and the steps considered necessary to achieve them. Additionally, our exploration extended sensitivity to diversity, a key component within the capability framework and reflected in the data. We looked whether we could identify how involved actors consider the different conversion factors of individual refugees that impact refugees’ integration opportunities.

Interviews and documents/texts were coded following an iterative coding procedure from open coding to axial coding (Boeije, 2009). Our analysis ultimately focused on expectations of flexible housing; understandings of the problems being addressed by this policy; and the presumed effects on refugees. Before going into the analysis, the following section first outlines the policy context in the Netherlands that frames the discourses of Dutch policymakers and housing providers in our study.

Accommodation and integration in The Netherlands

While asylum seeker accommodation has long fuelled Dutch political discourse (Geuijen, 2004), attitudes have become more negative in recent years—along with the rise of populist discourse and political parties—with media and politicians portraying arrivals as taking advantage of the ‘overly generous’ Dutch welfare state (Bakker et al., 2016). Although the high influx of refugees in 2015 stimulated concerted reengagement with improving immigration practices, after 2017, funding for the Immigration & Naturalisation Service (IND) was pared back. While the flow of new arrivals decreased between 2017 and 2020, the backlog in processing asylum applications increased, along with the diminishing capacity of the immigration service (Huitink et al., 2020). Between 2018 and 2021, pressures on reception centres increased with the number of refugees and asylum seekers entering the Dutch reception system outnumbering those exiting it (see Figure 1). Furthermore, although new applications fell significantly in 2020 due to COVID travel restrictions, this seems to have only held back migration with numbers of shelter applicants rising sharply again in 2021 further blocking the flow. As of May 2022, approximately 40,000 people resided in Dutch reception centres, with about one-third having received a stay permit but awaiting available accommodation (COA: the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers, 2022).

Figure 1. People entering and exiting the Dutch asylum reception system, 2016-2021.

Source: COA: the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (2022a).

EU Member states have to adhere to the foundations laid out in the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) (European Commission, 2022) in receiving and accommodating refugees. Different levels of government are involved in the Netherlands, with, at the central level, the Ministry of Justice and Security (Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid (JenV), being responsible for the reception and asylum procedure system. While the ministry is responsible for policy, execution is assigned to two independently functioning government organisations: the Immigration & Naturalisation Service (IND) and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA). The central government is also responsible for providing the institutional framework within which local governments operate, directing and steering local governments towards central state ambitions through a legal and financial framework.

Twice a year, the Ministry of Justice and Security formulates targets of how many refugees municipalities have to accommodate. A different ministry, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations (BZK), is responsible for the national system of housing provision and formulates goals and ambitions related to increasing the housing stock. Recently, this ministry has formulated the ambition to stimulate the building of 15,000 flexwoningen (flexible houses) per year for specific target groups such as refugees. Flexible housing, as defined by the ministry, is housing with a temporary or adaptable component in terms of, ‘the dwelling itself, the occupancy (through the use of a temporary rental contract) or the temporary use of the location. The houses are usually small in size. Flexwonen may concern homes in a transformed building or new construction.’ (Ollongren, 2019, p. 3). For this paper, we focus on all housing offered to refugees under a temporary lease contract (usually 2 years or 5 years), which we refer to here as ‘flexible housing.'

Figure 2 is a conceptual map of the organisations involved in the Dutch accommodation process/system. When asylum seekers apply for a permit, they remain in reception centres until their asylum procedure is finished. A regular asylum registration takes six to nine days, and the Immigration & Naturalisation Service (IND) aims to deal with a case, start to finish, within six months. However, due to understaffing, asylum seekers often wait for over a year.² If the procedure is unsuccessful, asylum seekers can re-apply or return to their country of origin assisted by The Repatriation and Departure Service (DT&V). The accommodation procedure starts when the procedure is successful, and an asylum migrant obtains a residency permit.

Figure 2. Accommodation during the asylum procedure & responsible organisations.

The Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) is responsible for migrants’ intake and allocates refugees to a region. This screening and matching process, in which the COA tries to take into account the skills and social network of the migrant, aims to improve the chances of newcomers in building a new life. At the same time, the central government aims to disperse refugees equally over different municipalities. Accommodation targets are mainly based on municipal populations. As a result, a region can be ‘full’: blocking a potential match between migrant and labour market (Sax et al., 2019). After the matching procedure, refugees move to the next reception centre - preferably close to their matched region - to wait until housing becomes available. There, municipal social workers get in touch with the refugee staying in the reception centre to make an integration plan, so refugees can already start to prepare for life in the Netherlands by following language courses, doing voluntary work, and preparing for the labour market. Refugees are informed when housing becomes available.³ After moving out of the refugee accommodation centre, refugees are no longer subject to COA's services.

Local governments are responsible for housing allocation and the integration of refugees. Twice a year, each municipality is allocated an accommodation target, which is the number of refugees they have to house. Municipalities have agreements with housing associations in their regions about how to provide housing for this target group. In the Netherlands, housing associations are the leading partner of the municipalities in accommodating refugees. In performance agreements between the municipality and the associations, housing policy is translated into housing practices. All housing providers have to adhere to national housing quality and fair allocation standards. Within this framework of formal rules and agreements, housing providers still have space to make their own strategic and operational choices. The position of housing associations is particularly strong in the Dutch housing market, as they own and control around thirty per cent of the total housing stock. This is a very large share compared to other EU countries (Pittini et al. 2015). Dutch housing associations are private non-profit entities that, following the 2015 Housing Act, are tasked with providing housing to lower-income households (Czischke & van Bortel, 2018). Housing provision for refugees in the private rental sector (PRS) is often not financially viable. However, there are rare examples where private parties agree with municipalities to house refugees in return for indirect subsidies (Groot et al., 2022).

Apart from housing, local governments in the Netherlands are also responsible for integration programmes for refugees and helping them meet formal integration requirements set out by the central government. Municipalities offer training and credits to help refugees towards this goal. The formal integration requirement is met when refugees pass the civic integration exam, in which refugees are tested on their Dutch language proficiency, their knowledge of Dutch values and society, and their orientation towards the Dutch labour market (Ministry of the Interior, 2021).

This training and testing is only available to refugees after registering with the municipality. However, local authorities in the Netherlands struggle with the housing provision for refugees because of a broader shortage in housing, with refugee housing targets exacerbating pressures on municipal social housing stocks. Different target groups compete for the same affordable housing segment with the choice to accommodate one group often implying others are left out. Moreover, policymakers in municipalities struggle with the unpredictability of accommodation targets. Due to peaks in migration flows and ‘hiccups’ in IND procedures, accommodation targets tend to vary every six months. It is thus challenging for policymakers and housing providers to prepare for this when there is no surplus of affordable housing for dealing with fluctuations in demand. The problems with access to housing mean that refugees usually have to wait for a long time in reception centres until the municipality provides housing, increasing the pressure on reception centres because the influx of refugees is ongoing. On August 26, 2021, the COA reported that almost all centres were full (COA: the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers, 2022). Since then, various emergency locations have been opened to deal with the increasing amount of people in reception centres.

Refugee housing: a stepping stone or a destination?

So far we have outlined the Dutch arrival and accommodation system for asylum seekers, identifying which actors are responsible for which steps in the process. Shifting our focus to the data, we now first focus on the interrelation of housing and integration as articulated in policy discourse. Subsequently, we home in on the anticipated contributions of temporary housing to the accommodation and integration system. The data reveal shared expectations of conversion factors and integration-related capabilities associated with refugee housing provision. Following this, we explore divergent perspectives among stakeholders. A key observation is the dissonance between the goals formulated at the central government level and those defined by policymakers and housing suppliers at the local level, as well as variation between local contexts in how policy is implemented.

Beginning with the consistencies, our examination of policy discourse suggests that Dutch policymakers at various levels see housing as not only providing shelter but also instrumental in enhancing dwellers’ capabilities. Public documents for instance emphasise the opportunities for local governments and housing providers to stimulate communities in flexible housing projects and create opportunities for ‘well-being’, ‘participation’ and ‘integration’. A key example comes from an open letter from the Dutch minister of the Interior and Kingdom relations to the House of Representatives, which explicitly sets out the rationale of flexible housing policy:

First and foremost, flexible housing keeps people off the streets and provides a roof over their heads. In addition, flexible housing offers opportunities for participation, better integration and the prevention of loneliness, especially when different target groups are housed in a mixed project, accompanied with an appropriate form of social management. (Ollongren, 2019)

On the whole, the instrumental value of flexible refugee housing is largely described with pluriform and opaque terms. For example, flexible housing is designed to help refugees ‘get their lives on track’, according to a policy paper from the Municipality of The Hague (2021, p. 20). Similarly, according to a project manager from one of the housing suppliers, flexible housing allows refugees to ‘settle and get used to the pace of the city’. There is thus often a particular vagueness to discourses on the value of flexible housing, especially in relation to permanent housing, which is also capable of realising both shelter and facilitating integration-related capabilities.

In terms of concrete social objectives, stakeholders consistently underscored four crucial elements for integration, frequently highlighted in both written texts and interviews. Learning Dutch, understanding the culture, engaging in daytime activities, and establishing a social network emerged as key activities emphasised by various stakeholders. Notably, these aspects prominently feature in the policy programmes of the two municipalities under scrutiny, likely due to municipal governments’ responsibility for both housing and integration outcomes.

This prominence is evident in policy documents from the local government of The Hague, which stress that providing a secure dwelling is insufficient; ‘there must also be a perspective.’ This perspective is deemed crucial not only for an individual with refugee status but also for the city as a whole. Being an inhabitant of The Hague, according to the policy, involves active participation in all facets, preferably with gainful employment. This necessitates language proficiency and an understanding of the norms of the country. Often, a trajectory is required to attain a sufficient educational level. Simultaneously, foundational aspects such as income and proper housing must be in order (Municipality of The Hague, 2017, p. 9). The Hague’s policymakers also write that ‘for the integration of status holders, contact with local residents is an important aspect. To encourage contact with local residents, various activities are organised at the location or in the neighbourhood, and social buddies are paired with status holders to get to know the community’ (Municipality of The Hague, 2017, p. 24).

Housing is explicitly defined as a foundational condition, serving as a resource to enhance individuals’ integration-related capabilities. Applying the capabilities approach, how do we classify achievements like ‘learning Dutch', ‘understanding the culture', ‘having a daytime activity', and ‘building a social network’? While these may be viewed as integration goals, The Hague’s policy implies that policymakers anticipate some of these contributing to a broader objective—'being an inhabitant of The Hague', suggesting participation, preferably through employment. Understanding Dutch and fostering a social network are seen as potential contributors. Thus, these can be regarded as conversion factors—external and internal elements influencing the transformation of resources into capabilities (Robeyns, 2017, p. 45).

How flexible housing is expected to contribute to integration

In the previous section, we noted that policy discourse asserts that refugee housing policy focuses on facilitating specific conversion factors. This is realised by offering ‘adequate’ housing as a resource, while acknowledging that refugees must acquire essential ‘conversion factors’ for integration—learning the language, acquainting themselves with people and societal norms—ultimately enabling the capability to participate in society in a manner that suits them, preferably through employment. Examining the perceived role of flexible housing in this trajectory, our data suggests its contribution to this is framed in two ways: by creating momentum and fostering community. Momentum, considered a feature or function of flexible housing, ostensibly motivates refugees to integrate. In several of our interviews, ‘being motivated’ was mentioned as a vital component contributing to integration and participation. For example, the team leader of refugee allocation at COA explained that not having access to housing (flexible or regular) demotivated some refugees in their desire to participate in Dutch society: ‘Having to wait all the time in a refugee centre, not knowing when it will be your turn for housing. Worrying about family members who are not in the Netherlands. I understand that this has quite a demotivating effect on refugees. They are stuck, you might say.’ This suggests that ‘motivation’ could be identified as another crucial conversion factor to integration-related capabilities, addressable through housing provision.

Moreover, respondents expected that quicker access to a home stimulated the will of refugees to participate in Dutch society. This sentiment aligns with policy documents, as evidenced by a 2021 policy evaluation about speeding up refugee accommodation, for instance, which reads: ‘COA reception centres are currently housing 11,000 refugees who are eligible for accommodation in a municipality. This hampers a good start to the integration process’ (Ministry of Justice & Security, 2021, p. 13; Ministry of the Interior & Kingdom, 2022). Even though refugees can start with the formal integration process while waiting for accommodation in the municipality they are matched to, all the policy documents we analysed assumed accommodation as necessary to effective participation in the formal integration process. The emphasis was on quick access to municipal integration services that help refugees into work or education, with the assumption that flexible housing can be provided more quickly than permanent accommodation.

Along with momentum, community building and the assumed influence of neighbours also resonated in how policymakers perceived flexible housing. On all levels of government and policy implementation, respondents appeared hopeful of the benefits of the ‘social mix’ (mixing refugees with other social housing users) within new flexible projects. Creating flexible housing projects also provided an opportunity for authorities to manage communities within these projects⁴. An employee of a housing provider in Amsterdam, for example, explained that he witnessed a motivating effect on refugees who live in their flexible housing projects caused by living among (Dutch) peers. ‘People inspire each other […]. Meeting other people can have very positive effects on refugees. For instance, when they live with Dutch young people in different phases of their lives, it can inspire them to follow suit.’ Later in the interview, he explained that it is not just living among Dutch people that creates more opportunities for refugees, but that living among other refugees also helps: ‘We offer in-house language courses, and the threshold for this is lower when they can ask their [refugee] neighbours to come along. […] And they pick up the language faster because they start to communicate more easily with the [Dutch] people around them.’ In summary, flexible housing is expected to contribute significantly to key conversion factors—such as language learning, motivation, and networking—enhancing the capability to integrate into Dutch society. These outcomes are attributed to two key characteristics of flexible housing: its rapid establishment and the configuration as mixed-tenant accommodations.

Varying perspectives on the goal of flexible housing

So far, we have discerned at least two lines of value attributed to flexible housing. First, flexible accommodation contributes to integration related capabilities because it is ostensibly faster to build than regular housing. Quick access to the world outside the reception system is considered beneficial to integration, creating more opportunities for refugees to start jobs, education, and to invest in local social networks. Nowhere in the policy does it suggest that refugees are expected to find their own housing however, so flexible housing does not seem to be considered as instrumental to structural housing integration (Phillips, 2006). Instead, it is primarily perceived as a resource facilitating capabilities such as the freedom to find a job or to start an education. Secondly, the creation of flexible housing presents an opportunity to establish vibrant and well-managed communities, thereby fostering quicker integration. This is because conversion factors like language proficiency and the development of a valuable network are encouraged within these community settings. While these two lines are clear and consistent in the data, they were translated differentially into practice by differently actors and across contexts.

At the central government level, the emphasis was not only on speeding up the accommodation of refugees so that they can start integration activities, but also to free up space for new refugees in reception centres (Ministry of the Interior, 2021, p. 13). In sum, the central government actors (and rhetoric) saw flexible housing as a means to get refugees out of the asylum system as quickly as possible—which was considered more beneficial for their integration trajectories, compared to waiting until permanent housing becomes available. There was also a stress on the benefits of social mix and the advantages of communities formed in flexible housing, which deflected from comparisons to regular, permanent housing solutions. However, refugee accommodation and facilitating integration are ultimately the responsibility of local governments who direct housing associations in how and where to accommodate refugees. At the local level, the concern with flexible housing was quite different.

In Dutch municipalities, housing and integration policy goals are commonly divided over two policy domains: housing and social administration. The goal of policymakers in the housing department is housing refugees, but they are not involved with integration policy. The municipal housing policy programmes in The Hague and Amsterdam reflect a division of responsibilities, as programme discourses do not allude to connections between housing and capabilities for integration. In social administration programmes, housing is described as a means to accessing the municipal support system, although the role that housing itself can play for refugees is rarely discussed. Housing was thus not part of the integration policy discourse in either municipality.

In interviews, officials often legitimised flexible housing policy by emphasising the importance of housing for integration. However, policymakers from both municipalities also implied that flexible projects are sub-optimal solutions. Nonetheless, one interviewee from Amsterdam explained that, given the accommodation targets, they saw a need to encourage their realisation for at least some of the refugees they have to house:

The ideal is still a house where they do not have to leave afterwards. We can offer such a home to quite a few refugees, especially refugees aged over 27. Below that age, we try to place them more in flexible residential locations, which are sub-optimal. We prefer not to do that, but we cannot make the targets with only regular homes. If we house all refugees in regular social housing, we would hardly be able to accommodate other vulnerable groups, or we would no longer be able to accommodate regular home seekers.

This segment suggests that policymakers in Amsterdam do take individual differences (central to the capabilities approach) into account to some extent. This is evident in the specific assignment of younger refugees to social housing, assuming that this demographic may find it easier to connect with Dutch peers, who are also intended to reside in these temporary accommodations. In essence, this policy acknowledges that certain refugees may have distinct needs and opportunities related to integration compared to others.

By and large, policymakers and local-level policy documents exhibit a greater concern for the long-term implications on the capabilities of refugees residing in flexible housing compared to their counterparts at the central government level. Notably in Amsterdam, prior experiences with flexible housing projects have made the municipality wary of short-term solutions, as illustrated by this policymaker from Amsterdam: ‘What I think some other municipalities have done better than Amsterdam is anticipate the expiry of [flexible/temporary] contracts. […] About 85% of the dwellers will not have been able to find a new accommodation solution.’ The approach to flexible housing in The Hague differs from Amsterdam, with a transfer plan required to provide security to vulnerable target groups like refugees: ‘In this way, we ensure that residents have clarity and that the municipality will not face a similar task again after the temporary situation has ended.’ (Municipality of The Hague, 2021, p. 7).

Housing providers seem to share these concerns. In our interviews, housing association employees explained how they experienced pressure from the municipality to develop flexible solutions. However, they felt caught between municipal policy management and the need to earn the trust of their tenants, as this fragment from the interview with a project manager from an Amsterdam housing association illustrates:

We often feel like a conduit. Municipal decisions are imposed on us, which we communicate to the residents. But we get to deal with the tenant’s reaction. The more often our promises to the tenants change, the more difficult it becomes for us to keep them happy. As a landlord, you simply want to show your residents that you do what you promise.

The sentiment of not being able to deliver desired levels of quality and security was emphasised by housing association workers in both The Hague and Amsterdam. This issue often arose when we inquired about ‘flexible’ solutions.

The lack of long-term vision poses a particular challenge for planning large-scale housing projects. According to our interviews with housing providers, municipalities are often erratic in their accommodation targets and the idea that vulnerable target groups are interchangeable seems to persist. The housing providers we talked to explained that they consider each target group’s specific needs, such as location, a specific social mix, and facilities. As such, a sudden change in accommodation targets can be a cause of serious frustration:

Suddenly, we were told that no refugee would need to be accommodated for the rest of the year. Well, that’s crazy because that didn’t correspond to our agreements, plus, we just built houses intended for refugees. If we allocate regular starting households there, the social mix in our project will not work out how we planned it for integration purposes. We try to make the best possible distribution on the corridors between refugees, Dutch starters, male and female, that sort of thing. A decision like that [by the municipality] does not consider what this means for our practice. […] Then, the municipality suggested that we would accommodate a resident from another vulnerable social group for every refugee that we would not accommodate. That was purely about the interchangeability of vulnerable groups, which is, of course, impossible. (Project manager flexible housing, housing association Amsterdam).

This extract signals that municipal housing policymakers operate in a pragmatic way, in which the implications for housing suppliers and the capabilities of dwellers are not prioritised. Instead, under the pressures to house multiple vulnerable target groups, policymakers look for opportunities to house any target group, in any attainable location.

Discussion

The central concern of this article has been the ways actors involved with flexible housing policy and provision understand its contribution to integration processes and enhancing the capabilities of refugees. Our empirical focus has been Dutch policy and practice, and how actors, at local and central government levels, and within housing associations, approach the provision of flexible accommodation for refugees. The research critically highlights a tension between the objectives of flexible housing and the goals of integration policy, which aim to improve integration-related capabilities for newcomers. It also provides a number of insights into the operation and function of flexible housing policy, as well as the potential and limits of this approach in enhancing integration-related capabilities, at least from policymaker perspectives.

A dearth of international research exists addressing refugee accommodation policy with much of it explicitly connecting creative, flexible accommodation practices to integration policy goals (Bakker et al., 2016; Kourachanis, 2021; Phillips, 2006). This article adds to that literature in three critical ways. First, it has explicitly illustrated how the Dutch refugee integration and housing policy systems function and how they are intertwined. Earlier work carried out by Phillips (2006) established that conflicting local government agendas can generate obstacles to refugee housing integration, or at least obfuscate obstacles that thus remain unaddressed. In the Netherlands too, policies targeting refugees do not appear optimally aligned as housing and integration concerns belong to different policy domains and are managed by a range of actors, operating at different levels of abstraction from both refugees and housing provision.

Second, our work sheds light on the discourses used by policymakers facing a policy paradox: the temporariness of flexible refugee accommodation and long-term integration goals, for which newcomers need stability. Our empirical findings establish that policy actors tend to (over)emphasise the opportunities that flexible housing—in the form of flexwonen—can create. Discourse often focuses on swiftness, with policy statements emphasising the urgency of getting refugees out of reception centres with long stays understood to diminish their investment in their new country of residence (see Huijnk et al., 2021 Engbersen et al., 2020), and into housing. Not only is having a house posed as key to accessing formal integration programmes (such as language courses and coaching offered by municipalities), but a swift trajectory out of the reception centre and into housing is also seen as essential in keeping refugees motivated in the integration process.

While the policy narrative is that flexible housing provides a quicker route into integration by sustaining motivation and facilitating investment in the host culture, in practice, flexible housing construction has yet to prove to be much quicker than setting up permanent housing. The scaling up of flexible housing provision in the Netherlands faces a number of challenges and, so far, roll out has been slower than expected (Groot et al., 2022). Moreover, other approaches to speeding up housing provision for refugees in the Netherlands seem to have been more effective in eliminating the backlog. In 2022, for example, the municipalities of Utrecht and Amersfoort began allocating all vacant social housing to refugees, at least temporarily, and thereby housed all refugees on their waiting lists within just a few weeks. This suggests that speed is not the only reason for promoting flexible housing for refugees. Lack of political support for the allocation of permanent social housing to refugees also plays a role in policy preferences for flexible housing.

While our analysis didn’t emphasise ‘functionings’ (actualised capabilities) due to the focus on providers and policymakers rather than end users, our data, sourced from policy documents and interviews, uncovered that institutional actors anticipate certain ‘functionings’ as discernible outcomes of refugee integration. These primarily include participating in society and engaging in everyday life, preferably by securing paid employment. The actors anticipate that speaking Dutch, understanding the host culture, being motivated to learn, and being part of a local social network are ‘conversion factors’ that give refugees the freedom to use opportunities for integration that present themselves. Here, the capabilities approach can be somewhat confusing, as these conversion factors can also be understood as integration-related capabilities. For example, the capability ‘being able to learn Dutch’ is, again, dependent on personal and contextual conversion factors. One such contextual factor is housing. Housing, in general, is seen in discourse as an essential resource that facilitates the actualisation of integration-related capabilities—enabling a refugee to subscribe to and access language courses at a location accessible with public transport from their home or enabling a refugee to meet neighbours. Flexible housing, as we find in our data, is understood to have specific characteristics that promote such actualisations: a resource community and quick access.

Dutch policy on flexible housing encourages projects with a social mix of tenants so as to provide both shelter and community. A social network is seen as something that is in itself of value for integration, participation and general well-being. However, it is also seen as a conversion factor, instrumental to the integration-related capabilities mentioned above. The expectations policymakers and housing suppliers expressed in our research is that flexible housing can be designed to facilitate social conversion factors. For example, an immigrant might have the capacity to learn Dutch, but having a neighbour to practise with contributes tremendously to actualising this opportunity. A critical sidenote here is that this discourse does not seem to consider that a carefully engineered, socially mixed community could be established in new permanent housing projects as well. Indeed, how valuable are ‘flex’ housing communities to refugees compared to long-term housing and more stable communities? The reasoning behind the community-characteristic of flexible projects seems primarily based on the assumption that neighbours will naturally connect. However, flexible housing is characterised by people coming and going.

Our interviews with housing suppliers implied that community management requires ongoing attention. Housing suppliers put effort into encouraging the creation and maintenance of communities in flexible projects. Nowhere in the policy documents we scrutinised, however, was this necessity addressed. A possible explanation may be that central government and local policy actors are mainly concerned with allocating the refugees to housing and are less exposed to the long-term challenges of social sustainability than the actual suppliers of housing. In our interviews, housing providers expressed a concern with policymakers and the need to better address sustaining temporary and mixed housing, and the challenges faced by those implementing policies.

Conclusion

The Netherlands is arguably a critically insightful case for examining the dynamics of regulation and planning for refugee housing. It reflects a continental European context of highly regulated and institutionalised housing provision that is increasingly being exposed to intense price pressures. The empirical work carried out for this paper illustrates how this context creates challenges for government in meeting their responsibilities for refugees. We consider how policymakers balance out the possibly conflicting capabilities of refugees—being sheltered and being able to integrate in society. Our analysis suggests that policymakers seek to make up for the adverse effects of temporariness through providing flexible accommodation quickly and pair it with efforts to create communities within these accommodations. Given the context of current housing shortages, policymakers, housing providers, and even the Refugee Council have made the case that flexible housing can be advantageous for refugees compared to alternatives.

Our findings however, also suggest that there is room for improvement. The focus on flexible housing in the Dutch context seems not to have taken into account potential, continuous or sustained housing insecurity, as is now being experienced by young flex-dwellers in Amsterdam, for example. To some extent, flexible housing projects are not necessarily solving housing and integration problems, but rather pushing them to the future. Merely allocating flexible housing to a mixed group of people is a rather limited approach and while it opens some opportunities to refugees, it also creates frictions between actors at different levels of governance and practice. The policy would certainly benefit from more attention being paid to what it actually achieves in terms of what it costs the various actors involved.

Kimhur (2022) suggests housing policy can be improved by focusing on people’s housing capabilities, which she conceptualises as housing opportunities, securities, and abilities. For refugees, we argue, it makes sense to evaluate and improve housing policy by explicitly taking into account capabilities pertaining to integration. This requires policymakers to engage more meaningfully with the circumstances under which flexible housing is the right solution for its occupants, and consider what locations, housing designs, neighbourhood characteristics, housing pathways etc., mean for the integration of refugees. Our study’s findings not only raise questions about policy makers’ understandings of flexible housing projects but also underscore the importance of research on the lived experiences of tenants in flexible projects. Such research would significantly contribute to increasing understanding of tenant interests and how integration goals are served through, or compromised by, flexible housing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) makes a distinction between refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees are people who flee their home countries because of conflict or persecution; asylum seekers are defined as individuals who submit an asylum application. In this article, we use ‘refugees’ to describe forcibly displaced migrants who obtained a refugee status or subsidiary protection status in the Netherlands.

2 The Netherlands cut back on spending on asylum reception and COA announced the reduction of capacity in NL from 31,000 places in 2017, to 27,000 in 2019. But a dramatic rise in the backlog of pending cases in the course of 2018, reportedly owed to insufficient planning and staff shortages at the Immigration Naturalisation Service (Immigratie en Naturalisatiedienst, IND), has put the reception system under significant pressure, constantly operating at full- or near-full capacity (ECRE 2019: 19).

3 A refugee can refuse an offer for placement. COA will assess within 14 days whether the refusal is justifiable. If the refusal is deemed unjustified, then the refugee is awarded a 24 hour to reconsider the offer. COA does not provide for a new offer and the refugee must leave the centre.

4 This is already reflected in both The Hague and Amsterdam, where recent flexible housing projects have aimed at a fifty-fifty mix of refugees and other target groups, often students (see Czischke & Huisman 2018).