The rents for social housing in Amsterdam and Utrecht have gone up by around €100 a month for new tenants, the Volkskrant reports on Monday.

In many cases, the rent has gone up to just under the limit for rent-controlled properties – currently €699 a month, the paper says. Rents in new tenancy agreements have also gone up sharply in Den Bosch and Haarlem.

This means it is impossible for low income families to find somewhere to live, the paper says. In addition, the number of evictions for non-payment of rent rose 8% last year to nearly 7,000.

Treasury

Housing corporations say they have no choice but to maximise rents in order to pay a new government tax on housing corporation income. That tax is due to raise €1.7bn for the treasury by 2017.

Sitting tenants currently pay an annual rent increase of up to 4% above inflation. The aim of that is to encourage high earners to leave low income housing.

To qualify for social housing, people should not earn more than €35,000 a year.