dNM
The first application round for future de Nieuwe Meent inhabitants is behind us. We are happy to announce and welcome our new members. How did the application process go?
Whoever was interested could, after asking for an application form by email, apply up until July 7th to become a new member and future inhabitant of de Nieuwe Meent. The options were to apply for an independent social housing unit, or to apply with a group or a part of a group for one of the co-living floors. These are floors in the tower predestined for co-living in the future building at Science Park, expected to be done in 2023. Aside from one face-to-face meeting, the whole application process to admit new members occurred online.
Who Was The Committee?
Our admission committee was composed of current dNM members: Josta, Karola, Selj and Radek; plus two advisors, Andrea from the dNM advisory board and an external member, Stephen from Soweto. Mindful of our own relatively homogeneous and privileged composition, our goal was to expand the current membership into a more diverse and inclusive community. We took all decisions by consensus.
Karola: ‘It’s not that we picked new members according to a majority vote, instead we kept the conversation going until we all agreed on who the new members were going to be.’
Considerations
We carefully read and discussed all 26 applications, all the while visualizing our future community and taking into account a diversity of age, abilities, gender and sexuality, family status, migration histories, occupations and skills. Important selection criteria were the understanding of dNM’s values, past contributions of the applicants to the project and future commitments they could make.
Karola: ‘The application featured specific questions about, among things, sustainability, common care, and we as a commission took notes on this. We independently had a list of favorites, and afterwards we started a discussion about these.’
How Many New Members?
Our mandate for this first round was limited to admit six new members for social units and two living groups, in addition to three independent units and one living group that have already been reserved for the initial members. We selected six outstanding applications for individual apartments, as well as one exemplary living group of four people.
Karola: ‘It came as a little bit of a surprise that there were many more applications for the social, independent units. But among those applicants there were a number of applicants who were interested in joining a co-living group as well. The thing was, it wasn’t possible to apply by yourself for those. That’s why we at the Community working group want to organise more (events) to bring potential co-living members together.’
Making a selection wasn’t easy, since we have received many more exciting and remarkable applications than we could admit as members. We recommend several applicants to initiate living group formations, and encourage some others to get more involved with the project.
Check out the members here.
In Conclusion
The first application round for new de Nieuwe Meent members has been finished up successfully.
There will be (approximately) five more independent units and three more living groups to allocate in the future! The next application round is expected to take place early next year.
Interested in being a part of de Nieuwe Meent? Fill in our form!
