Carla Huisman's homepage

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies in the Research Group Urban Geographies. With Justus Uitermark, I study the case of Amsterdam-North in the international Municipalist Neighborhood Experiments project.

The defence of my PhD, unfortunately had to be postponed due to Corona but I was able to defend my PhD thesis entitled, "Insecure Tenure: The precarisation of rental housing in the Netherlands" on October 22nd 2020. The research was conducted at the Population Research Centre at the Department of Demography at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen. My supervisors were Clara Mulder and Louise Meijering.

Afterwards, I worked at the Housing Management Chair at MBE; the Department of Management in the Built Environment, at the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University Delft as part of the Co-Lab research group. My last year there I spent on doing my NWA Idea Generator research, "A paradoxical idea: Stimulating integration through spatially concentrating refugees at the microlevel?".

I am a sociologist with a particular interest in social-spatial inequality, and a specialisation in the precarisation of the Dutch rental market, especially the introduction of temporary renting contracts. Below you can find my PhD thesis and some of my publications. Outside university I am chairwoman of the grassroots, volunteer-driven housing association Woningbouwvereniging Soweto.

For questions please don't hesitate to contact me at info@cypers.nl.

New:

• Great news! On 14th November 2023 the second chamber of the Dutch parliament approved a law restoring permanent rental contracts as the norm in Dutch housing, by rescinding the freedom that had existed since 2016 to unconditionally use temporary renting contracts. The first chamber approved this some months ago, but now that the second chamber has also approved it, it will become law. See the NOS article "Toch steun in eerste kamer voor wet tegen tijdelijke contracten" (14th November 2023) for more information. For press queries please approach my university's press division.
• Between self-organisation and formal participation: increasing tenants’ influence through self-management? – A Dutch case-study. Article co-authored with D. Czischke and accepted on 16th November 2022 for publication in Housing, Theory and Society.
• Tijdelijke huur leidt tot uitgesteld leven - this is an article in Dutch from Huurpeil 3 (2022), the magazine of the Dutch tenants' association (the Woonbond), by Mariëlle van Veen. My work is quoted in it.
• Carla Huisman 2022 Gespreksnotitie Rondetafelgesprek Tijdelijke huurcontracten - this is the document I submitted to the round-table session of the Dutch Parliament, concerning temporary renting contracts, and which took place on 13th September 2022. Relatedly, here is a link to an article on the Dutch news website NOS: Komt er einde aan tijdelijke huurcontracten, de 'cadeautjes voor huisjesmelkers'? My work is also quoted here.

Read:

• Huisman C.J. and Czischke D. (2020) Samen wonen om te integreren. Hoe gemengde woonprojecten interactie stimuleren tussen vluchtelingen en Nederlandse bewoners. Bestuurskunde Aflevering 3, 2020.
• In July 2020 I was awarded an NWO Idea Generator grant for my project "A paradoxical idea: Stimulating integration through spatially concentrating refugees at the microlevel?". See also this news item from my faculty.
• Huisman C.J. (2020) Huren wordt steeds onzekerder- De precarisatie van het Nederlandse huren. Rooilijn 53(1) 8-17. https://www.rooilijn.nl/artikelen/huren-wordt-steeds-onzekerder/.
• Carla Huisman, Stephanie Zeulevoet en Darinka Czischke (2020) “Zie bewoners niet slechts als consumenten, maar ook als medeontwikkelaars” Gebiedsontwikkeling.nu.

PhD thesis

Insecure Tenure: The precarisation of rental housing in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT: Secure housing is important for people’s well-being. Uncertainty about if and when you will need to leave your home has a negative effect on ontological security, the psychological stability that people need to live a meaningful life. This thesis answers the question whether rental housing in the Netherlands, over the last twenty years, has become less secure. Several developments point to Dutch renting becoming precarious to a significant extent. The successive introductions of new temporary contract forms advances very quickly, as do the continuous steep rent increases and the increases of starting rents. Rules on security of tenure, rent ceilings and maintenance are in theory still strong, but in practice knowledge of these regulations is almost non-existent, and enforcement is so weak that the rules have become largely meaningless. Empirical evidence shows that the majority of young adults in Amsterdam has a temporary renting contract, as opposed to being an owner occupier. Until recently the strength of the Dutch rental sector was that it offered almost as much security as buying a house. However, this strength is now being rapidly eroded – and it will not be easy to reverse this situation once it is too late. The thesis can be downloaded here.

In the Dutch press

I am interviewed in the AT5 item "(A)sociale huur: waarom de kloof tussen corporaties en huurders toeneemt" (14th November 2023). I appear in the video and I am also quoted in the article itself. My work is discussed in the following article in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, "Jongeren zijn vogelvrij op de huurmarkt in Amsterdam" (21st October 2020) (possibly behind a paywall) ...and also in this one: Tijdelijke huurcontracten zorgen voor stress: "Ik voel me nooit ergens thuis" (22nd October 2020) (possibly behind a paywall) Article in the University of Groningen newspaper (UKrant): Huurders steeds meer de klos op de Nederlandse woningmarkt Article on the nos website: Zorgen over tijdelijke huur van woningen Another article on the nos website: Flexhuurders in het nauw Radio item, at 41:40 On the television: 18.00 o’clock news, at 9:28 ; 20.00 news at 12:58 Questions in Parliament about the rise of temporary rent, with a reference to my research. Interview about my research: Tijdelijke huurcontracten boeken terreinwinst op de huurwoningmarkt

Journal articles

Please see also my Google Scholar page.

Huisman, C. J. & Czischke, D. (2022) ‘Between self-organisation and formal participation: increasing tenants’ influence through self-management? – A Dutch case-study.’ to appear in Housing, Theory and Society. There is a pre-print of this article here. Czischke, D. & C.J. Huisman (2018) ‘Integration through collaborative housing? Dutch starters and refugees forming self-managing communities in Amsterdam.’ Urban Planning, 3(4), 61-63. https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/1727 Huisman, C. J. (2019) ‘Non-enforcement as a technique of governance – the case of rental housing in the Netherlands’. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 6(2) 172-200. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23254823.2018.1522263 Huisman, C. J. (2016) ‘A Silent Shift? The Precarisation of the Dutch Rental Housing Market’. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 31(1) 93-106. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10901-015-9446-5 Huisman, C. J. (2016) ‘Temporary Tenancies in the Netherlands: From Pragmatic policy Instrument to Structural Housing Market Reform’. International Journal of Housing Policy 16(3) 409-422. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616718.2016.1195563 Huisman, C. J. (2014) ‘Displacement Through Participation'. TESG 105(2), 161-174. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tesg.12048/abstract

Miscellaneous

‘All Flex’ documentary on the precarisation of housing by Abel Heijkamp & Julij Borštnik, in which I also appear (2016). http://thefutureofwork.eu/?p=19 Huisman, C.J. (2017) Book review of: Squatting in Britain 1945-1955. International Journal of Housing Policy 17(4) 611-613. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2017.1338035 I was a panelist at the ‘Why should I trust you?’ seminar on the cooperation between researchers and communities, of the global Urban Lab of the TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture, 13 January 2020. A report is here.

- Last updated: 15th November 2023
- What does cypers mean? Cypers is Dutch for the tabby pattern of cats. Why is my website called cypers.nl? Why not? See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabby_cat.