Mayor Femke Halsema wants outdoor sleeping removed as a punishable offense in the city, AT5 reports. Residents of the Plantagebuurt have started a petition to stop the change, saying authorities must keep the power to step in when nuisance becomes severe.
Fines for outdoor sleeping have largely stopped for about a year. Halsema first called fining people sleeping outside “shameful” in 2021. The city then limited fines to cases that caused nuisance. Even so, an estimated 1,800 fines were issued between 2021 and 2024.
Halsema says the policy does not work. “The intention is that through the fine behavioral change is realized,” she wrote. She questions whether fining people who are homeless or without fixed housing actually reduces the nuisance linked to outdoor sleeping.
1 Comments
emmanuel_car@fedia.io · 1 pts · 2d
It’s a tricky one. Public spaces should be available to everyone, but if you’re “causing nuisance” (however that’s supposed to be defined) then you’re preventing other people from accessing the public space.
Being moved along is probably a better result than a fine, but that’s also a slippery slope that could lead to homeless people being forced out of their camps when they aren’t causing any nuisance except some NIMBYs seeing them as an eyesore instead of actual people.