Special Housing Needs in Relation to Overall Housing Policy

This chapter discusses the special housing needs in relation to overall housing policy. Since many years, the government housing policy has made allowance for two special groups—the elderly and the university students. The housing needs of the other special groups, however, did not receive attention or generate action until quite recently, as by that time the housing shortage for families had been eliminated in most places. Practically, no reliable national data are available in respect of the housing shortage of these special groups, while little experience has been gained in efforts to eliminate this shortage. Moreover, at the national level and particularly at the local level there are still not sufficient expert organizations that can, or wish to, undertake the gradual elimination of this shortage at the required scale. A serious general housing shortage occurred in the Netherlands after the Second World War. In its effort to eliminate this shortage, the central government imposed priorities. After the damaged housing had been repaired new construction got under way, that was, and continued to be, almost exclusively concentrated on family dwellings of average size.