Flemish Housing Minister Matthias Diependaele on Monday announced a review of rents for social housing tenants in Flanders.
The reform will come into force on 1 January next year and is intended to foster harmonised rates.
However, it met with a barrage of criticism from two opposition parties, Groen and Vooruit.
Since 1 July, Flanders has 41 housing companies, the result of a merger between social housing companies, social purchasing companies and social rental offices. However, differences persist between the rents charged by the social housing companies and the social rental offices, due to different methods of calculation.
According to Mr Diependaele, those who originally rented through a social rental agency will pay less from next year, while those who rent through a social housing company will pay more. This will bring rents more into line with the quality of the accommodation and incomes, said the Minister, who referred to a “solidarity contribution.”
In practical terms, 150,000 tenants will pay an average of €6 more per month from 1 January 2024. The other 13,000 will therefore pay an average of €50 less per month. The adjustment applies to all existing and new tenancy agreements.
The average social tenant in Flanders pays €341 per month, while the median is €284 .
The reform as a whole is budget-neutral, Diependaele assured, pointing to a better distribution of charges among social housing tenants.
However, the opposition Groen (ecologists) and Voouit (Socialists) criticised the housing minister’s decision.
Groen co-president Nadia Naji on Monday criticised Mr Diependaele, accusing him of proposing “a fictitious solution for the most vulnerable.”
In a statement, she accused the N-VA minister of wanting to make the most vulnerable pay for his failed policy, with rent prices remaining highly unequal, reflecting differences amounting to several hundred euros on an annual basis.
Ms Naji pointed out that Flanders had only provided itself with 833 social housing units last year, while almost 180,000 families and single people were on the waiting list.
Flemish MP Maxim Veys (Vooruit), for his part, described Mr Diependaele’s plan as “unacceptable”.
“Minister Diependaele is starting to show a trend: every time he makes an announcement about social housing, it’s bad news,” he said.
According to Veys, rents will rise for more than 150,000 tenants. “The result is that tenants in similar situations will now pay different prices and the transparency of the social rental market is in decline. This is simply unacceptable,” he added.
