Campaign Story

The past years, we worked very hard to make our dream happen. As a very diverse community we are realizing a housing complex for about fifty people. It will be an alternative to housing as we know it, one that is not governed by the market, but centered around solidarity, living together, shared use, sustainability and inclusivity.

Although there is increasingly more space for housing cooperatives such as de Nieuwe Meent, we are still going against the grain: institutional parties often don’t understand why we choose to maximize our rent on the level of social housing (meaning: affordable for as many people as possible), whereas we can legally charge more. Banks treat us mostly as a commercial client, even though we are a non-profit. And the Dutch legal framework offers big housing corporations possibilities for affordable financing that we don’t have access to. On the other hand, we got a lot of support, enthusiasm and energy. From our own community, from a larger group of people that co-finance de Nieuwe Meent, from our advisors and partners, and also from institutional parties such as the City of Amsterdam and the bank. Despite all the challenges, the building is very close. All the designs are finished, we have the building and environmental permit, and the preliminary agreement with our contractor is signed. And if the world would be the same as it was little over a year ago, we would have signed for financing by the bank and the City of Amsterdam as well.

Unfortunately, we’ve been dealing with fast rising interest rates and building costs. To counter these,  we’ve been tirelessly working with our advisors on our building plans and budgets. In the final building phase, we will use recycled materials and do more of the finishing ourselves, and to create more income we set up a system in which residents pay more for the use of the collective spaces, according to their means. Also, we applied for subsidies and we are working on other sources of income, such as rental of event spaces and memberships for people in the neighborhood. We made a lot of progress, but are at this point still dependent on the full cooperation of the city and a bank that has the courage to take the next step. We are doing everything we can to make this happen.

Because of all the unforeseen delays we are facing another problem: the money we need for day to day affairs is finished, and funds from the bonds of our crowdlenders, the part of our financing that is taken care of, can only be used when we start building. To reach this phase we need to secure the rest of the financing, and for these last steps we need money. That’s why we ask you for help. It’s of vital importance that we keep paying the bills. With your donation, you give us the last small push we need to continue: from a reality that exists on paper to an actual building in which a close-knit community lives and works, and throws open the doors for the neighborhood and the city.