Problem + Problem = Solutions

May 17, 2016 2:32 PM

In the Netherlands, Empty Prisons Become Homes for Refugees In an interesting take on reusing and recycling, a government agency in the Netherlands has opened empty prisons to accommodate the influx of migrants seeking asylum.
posted by Michele in California (18 comments total)

that was more positive than i was expecting. yay for the dutch.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:38 PM on May 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

Empty prison is, in America, the ultimate oxymoron.
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:42 PM on May 17, 2016 [9 favorites]

There was recently a push to try and do this with the Wapato jail up in Portland. Not as much for refugees, but for the exploding homeless population here. It's been shot down because it's far away from services that the population needs to access, which is unfortunate, because it's a completely unused building at this time (in fact, IIRC it was built, but never opened and has never had a population in it).

I mean, jails aren't great, cheery places to have people live, but especially if they're empty using them as temporary transitionary housing, it seems like a good use of existing resources.
posted by furnace.heart at 2:45 PM on May 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also at Dachau and Tempelhof.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:45 PM on May 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Australia has a similar strategy, but first we build the empty prisons.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:09 PM on May 17, 2016 [10 favorites]

I don't know if this would be a problematic take on this problem, and it's in relation to homelessness rather than refugees but could work for them as well, but wouldn't it be a useful public works project to basically build or rejuvenate a city so that people could live there off the streets and have access to the proper facilities that they require, and to give them access to running it themselves? I imagine it'd be like how there are towns filled with temporary workers, or a sort of half-way house, but as a city. Vanport City in between Portland and the Columbia River was created for wartime workers. Or is there historical precedent for this being a terrible idea?
posted by gucci mane at 3:18 PM on May 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gucci mane, I don't understand what your suggestion is. I think in the US, one of the big things that would reduce the incidence of homelessness is a move towards smaller living spaces that are truly affordable. Back when the burbs were invented, the average new home was under 1200 square feet and had an average of more than 3.3 people living there. The most recent stats I have seen puts new houses at an average of over 2400 sq. ft. in size with only 2.4 people living there.

A less car centric culture would also help. Walkable, transit printed design and good public transit would help a lot of people make ends meet.

I don't know how to get there from here. The world seems like it has lost its mind.

The photos in the article look pretty pleasant. I like simple, clean design. I don't think a space needs to be frou frou to be homey. Clean, safe, secure and comfortable in terms of warm and dry (or cool enough to sleep in hot weather) is sufficient.

A lot of housing for the homeless is done really badly.

I just have seen too many articles about the refugee crisis that offered nothing but complaints and criticisms. I thought this was heartening. A small bit of civility amidst a lot of unpleasantness.
posted by Michele in California at 3:33 PM on May 17, 2016 [6 favorites]

Muheisen says when he asked what they thought about the arrangement, the typical response was, “We are here under a roof, in a shelter, and we feel safe.”

Actually, I imagine that if I were in a similar post-traumatic state, a room with thick walls and heavy doors I can lock would be exactly what I'd want. I once stayed in an old monastery for a night, and found that even just my regular garden-variety anxiety was calmed by the heavy wooden door and the quiet that comes with dense, sturdy walls.
posted by you're a kitty! at 3:53 PM on May 17, 2016 [7 favorites]

After their last major round of asylum-seekers, (mostly from former client states in SE Asia,) the Netherlands turned around and repurposed their asylum-seekers' housing into student housing in which, some years ago, I lived for a few months.

It was rickety, drafty, and located in the middle of nowhere in a swamp. I needed a bed-net to keep away swarms of mosquitos from July until nearly November. Years of wear on the original blue curtains had converted them into features vaguely resembling stalactites.

So believe me when I say that this looks like an improvement over the norm.
posted by fifthrider at 3:59 PM on May 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was thinking, given how humane and pleasant Dutch prisons must be, it wouldn't be too hard to adapt them for social housing but this classic 19th Century Panopticon is way more prisony than I expected. The architect Rem Koolhaas has a chapter about this same building in S,M,L,XL, describing a speculative 1981 OMA project re whether it could be converted to a more modern prison. Though apparently when it was first built there was widespread concern that it was too luxurious.
posted by Flashman at 4:17 PM on May 17, 2016

What, they don't have poor people to criminalize?
posted by lumpenprole at 4:18 PM on May 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

I guess I'll be the stick in the mud and say I don't think this is a terrific way to treat people fleeing from trauma. Disallowing people to work and setting them up in a prison is not housing people, it's warehousing them. "Better than an active warzone" is a low bar to clear, so let's not just assume the refugees' sense of relief and gratitude means we have a model for best practice. If vacant prisons are an all-around great source of housing and a new urbanist panacea, why does it only come up when we're talking about homeless people or refugees?

(I'm not shitting on the OP, btw, this is interesting to hear about and I'm glad it was posted.)
posted by threeants at 4:29 PM on May 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I am aware this has potential to go bad places (and I am personally horrified at the idea that Dachau is also being used this way, per the in thread link above). But the pictures in the piece look like a much more decent housing arrangement than what most homeless shelters seem to provide. And a lot of refugees are sleeping in the woods or a town square with no shelter at all.

Basic security may seem like a low bar to a lot of people, but many people have never had it at all. Those people grow up, move elsewhere and write books with titles like "When heaven and earth changed places." This attempt to find space for them and not turn them away is an act of humanity. There isn't enough money to hand every refugee a middle class first world lifestyle overnight.

It is a place to start sorting their lives out. It gives them a chance. Some aren't getting that much.
posted by Michele in California at 5:14 PM on May 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

Empty prison is, in America, the ultimate oxymoron.

Well there was the time they put the Olympic athletes in one before the 'miracle on ice'. The Lake Placid Olympic village was an unopened yet prison.
posted by srboisvert at 5:24 PM on May 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Joe in Australia: "Australia has a similar strategy, but first we build the empty prisons."

Australia was a similar strategy, no?
posted by chavenet at 1:42 AM on May 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

threeants: Disallowing people to work and setting them up in a prison is not housing people,

And it's not meant to be. It's meant as a temporary solution, a way to give these people shelter and a safe place to stay for a couple of weeks or months. As for 'disallowing' them to work, how do you allow people to work while they may not have papers? How do you fit them into an already crowded system in just a few weeks, and how can you tax their salaries, for example? What can they even do, in a country that has unemployment, while they don't speak the language? It's just not as simple as it may seem.

I certainly do not think that the way refugees are welcomed in the Netherlands is perfect and ideal. But most of us are trying to do a decent job of it. Personally I'm ashamed of those that aren't. Because, yes, that is a thing that happens and it makes me mad.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:56 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Refugees are not allowed to work, but they practice speaking the Dutch language and learn to ride bicycles (both skills are essential to life in the Netherlands). The fact that they do so inside a prison doesn’t faze most of the residents. Muheisen says when he asked what they thought about the arrangement, the typical response was, “We are here under a roof, in a shelter, and we feel safe.”

Get to the part about how the doors are not locked from the outside. This does not look like a very low bar. They look forward to being integrated into a country that is receiving them with open arms, and treating them with dignity. Meanwhile they are not sleeping in ditches, starving along roadsides, or dodging bullets and artillery rounds. In some places paradise is not being shot in the head that day.

Oh, and unlike residents among the lower income tiers in the wonderful City by the Bay (in our country), they don't have to endure the scorn of gentrificating entitleists who complain about them spoiling the view.
posted by mule98J at 9:56 AM on May 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

I could not see the pictures in the original article, but I can see them on this Dutch newspaper website. And they're cool.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:15 AM on May 20, 2016 [1 favorite]