A hotel room as a stepping stone to a home of your own
Room for Change is a social-impact programme for hotels. Since 2021, hotels have made rooms available to people who are temporarily without a home. A stay of three to six months gives them the room to recover and work towards durable housing and, if they want, a job.
Three partners, one shared goal
- 01
The hotel
A participating hotel makes one or more rooms structurally available, at no extra work, alongside its regular guests.
- 02
The care partner
A local social organisation selects, places and supports each participant, with one fixed contact person per city.
- 03
The participant
Someone temporarily without a home recovers in a calm, dignified space and rebuilds towards stability.
People like you and me, without a home for a while
Participants are people who are economically homeless: without addictions or psychiatric indications, but without a place to live. Homelessness can happen to anyone, through a divorce, illness, job loss, bankruptcy, or several at once. They often cannot buy a home or rent privately, and are usually not registered long enough to qualify for social housing.
Room for Change offers an in-between solution so they do not end up on the street or in emergency shelters, where the risk of developing compounding problems is high. Hotels tell us participants are indistinguishable from their regular guests. For the participant, it is invaluable to exist for a while without the label “homeless”, and we see their self-image grow during their stay.
Critical time intervention
The programme is built on the “critical time intervention” principle: the time someone needs to recover from life on the street. By catching people early, before heavier problems develop, the chance of recovery and a return into society grows enormously. Most participants move on to a (semi-)permanent home within three months, with a runway to six.
Active in five cities, growing towards ten
Today Room for Change runs in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht. Our ambition is to keep growing towards the ten largest cities in the country, and we hope Room for Change can one day serve as a pilot for other countries.
- 15 hotels have taken part
- 150+ participants moved on to a home
- 5 cities active today
- 10 largest cities: our growth ambition
Help make the next room possible
Whether you run a hotel, work with this group, or want to give, there is a place for you in the programme.