Duwo’s new housing rules: plenty of choice, but ‘a little less freedom’ is needed

If you think about student houses, you think about traditions. But changes will have to be made soon in many houses. Duwo, the student housing provider, wants a new policy on who decides who may live in a house. At present, the residents of a Duwo house with shared amenities may choose their new flatmate themselves. In Delft, this is done on specially arranged evenings which are called instemmingen (vote ins). But in practice, Duwo says that it unintentionally excludes many people looking for housing. The lack of control, given that every residence arranges its own vote-in sessions, can lead to undesirable situations such as ‘fake’ housing, paying money for a room, and even fraud through social media.

Duwo believes that new rules should solve these kind of problems. All available rooms will soon have to be advertised on room.nl, the platform where a lot of the rooms that Duwo has on offer are listed. Duwo also plans to do a pre-selection of interested tenants from whom the residents can make the final choice.

Much unrest

While the announcement also stated that Duwo intends to work out its new policy with tenants, student associations and others before it takes effect in 2026, the news led to much unrest among students and in the media. BRES, the tenants association in Leiden, immediately sent a questionnaire (in Dutch) and a petition to its members and held an information evening.

‘For some of the residents, it seems as though they have forgotten that we are actually the owners of the houses’

The news also created resistance among students in Delft. “We had strong reactions from some individuals,” says Jelle van Kempen, Duwo’s Delft Location Manager. He describes how current tenants approached Duwo at the OWee information market to tell them ‘in forceful tones’ that they did not agree with the plans. “For some of the residents of some of the houses, it seems as though they have forgotten that we are actually the owners of the houses.”

ORAS, a TU Delft Student Council party, would like to brainstorm about the new policy. Last year the party did a survey on campus about shared housing, after which they approached Duwo. They are now involved in the preparations for discussions about the shared housing rules. The Lieve Mark Foundation (in Dutch), which was founded during the Covid pandemic to keep an eye on student well-being, was involved. They are now working on mapping the preferences of current and new tenants (see box).

‘The current housing culture deserves to be kept’

ORAS calls for not limiting students’ choice of housemates too much. The party believes that it is ‘essential to retain the social cohesion in student houses in Delft’, it says in a written response to Delta’s questions, and that is why it finds the aspect of choice important. It believes that the ‘current housing culture’ is an important part of student life in Delft, and ‘deserves to be kept’.

WijWonen, the tenants’ association that represents Duwo’s tenants in Delft, is also involved in the discussions. The chair said that the association is working on obtaining ‘input and information’ from its members and will then, with tenants’ organisations in other cities, decide its position. It is optimistic about the discussions. “I think the press release was viewed more heavily than was intended. It did contain examples, but Duwo has always said that it is open to other options.” Nevertheless, she believes that they will be hard discussions. “You cannot please everyone.”

‘Still quite some options’

Van Kempen, the Duwo manager, says the intention was always to discuss the plans. “We have been transparent about that to our tenant organisations.” He says that there are still quite some options. “You see this in our internal discussions. They range from ‘we need to hold a draw for all the rooms’ to ‘nothing should change’ and everything in between.” He does think though that things ‘should be a little less free than now’. “Peer organisations talk to us about this. This is definitely a sign. We have felt for a while now that something is not right.”

He says that he is looking at the discussions with confidence. “If I explain that our policy, as a student housing provider, should be fair, everyone gets that.” But there should still be an element of choice. “Your home and who you share it with is important.” But Van Kempen warns that this does not mean that the residents can do everything and anything. “We also receive messages from parents of students who live in that type of housing (where people get a place because of the vote-in system, Eds.) but experience difficulties,” he says. “For example we hear that people have been voted in, but after signing our contract they hear from their housemates that they will have to leave soon. We even hear that there are residents who pressure new tenants to share their Duwo log-in information and then change the password so that they can terminate the rental contract.” Van Kempen says that they deal with this strongly. “If I find out that someone has done this, they lose their room. That is a promise.”