Goodbye Merwedestraat?
Eighty foreign students live in temporarily residences in the Merwedestraat in Arnhem. The students have to leave the houses before 1 may next year.
Gelderlander
Consternation in the Gelderlander:
* One article of 6 October in the Gelderlander introduces the fact that the students have to leave the houses before 1 May next Year. The local authority has the idea to let the students move in old containers, as are already used in Amsterdam. These could properly function as houses for students.
* Another article says that Marc Willemsen, lessor of the houses for students, wrote a letter to the local authority to object to the decision to stop the accommodation next year. Neighbours in the district don’t bother that the students are around, they even like to see young people in the neighbourhood.
* A last article says that it is asked to tolerate the constructing of Merwedestraat for now, because searching for other accommodation takes a lot of time.
International students
What’s up here? Institute magener Gert de Groot gives the answer. ‘We guarantee exchange students and foreign students accommodation. Sometimes they find it themselves. These houses could be used for five years, ever since 1 August the students had to leave the houses. It was not that bad, actually, because it is about former houses of asylum seekers, the quality starts to decrease.’
Tower block for students
Last summer, a tower block with accommodation for 90 students of the faculty of Economics and Law was brought in the Blauwe Weide of Arnhem. That tower block is now full, actually.
In the meanwhile the Teacher Training College and faculty Technology were looking for accommodation for their students, which fitted the intentions of project-developers. The houses were empty, so the students could live there. The students had to get out of the houses before 1 May, which was not a problem for many as they left for home on 1 February.
Search for new options
What remains is a accommodation problem. How bad is that? De Groot: ‘The problem is limited and we will solve it with our current accommodation. We have to keep on searching for possibilities after 1 August and therefore we search together with the local authority and the housing society Vivare for new options. But it is certain that the houses in Merwedestraat will be destructed.’
