dNM
A team of around fifty people are building their own affordable rental homes in Amsterdam’s Watergraafsmeer. From today, the crowdfunding campaign has started and the accompanying video is available for all to see.
De Nieuwe Meent is the second ‘zelfbouw’ housing cooperative in Amsterdam, being a group of people who plan for the construction of their own social rental homes. Over the next two years, the association will build 40 social housing units in Amsterdam, divided over 15 individual homes and five residential groups. Today the crowdfunding campaign starts, which will determine whether the complex will be realized. De Nieuwe Meent wants to offer a solution to the housing crisis: homes have become investment objects instead of places where people can live. This leads to skyrocketing housing prices and an increase in homelessness, segregation and individualization.
De Nieuwe Meent actively counteracts this by building houses that will never end up on the free market. The houses will remain in the hands of the residents’ collective, which manages the building and keeps rents permanently low. The residents form a close-knit community, in which neighbors of different ages, ethnicities, religion, sexual orientations and disabilities support each other.
This social sustainability goes hand in hand with an ecological construction method. The building will be near energy neutral and will be constructed of wood as much as possible. Circularity plays an important role in all materials used.
Before any of that can happen, we need funding.
NOW is the time to support the Nieuwe Meent! Join the bond campaign or make a donation and become part of a large team building the city of the future.
