In Maastricht social housing company Servatius started an initiative with local volunteers in the neighbourhood of Wittevrouwenveld to improve the quality of life. In the last decade, they’ve turned around the neighbourhood by literally walking the streets with volunteers, and taking notes and following up. The housing company took a chance of using one of the houses to be the goto-place for the locals, winning hearts and minds over time. Step by step they addressed litter, gangs, broken pavements and spotted isolated eldery that needed support doing their gardening. Caring volunteers worked side by side with the municipal workers and the housing company to achieve this.

They moved from monitoring to intervening, and by now their todo-list of things to fix is usually short, and no one gets left behind in isolation. Their success is being copied to other areas in Maastricht and receives a lot of attention from other municipalities.

It’s been a gutsy move to get away from the head office, provide a place to meet and have meetings and go beyond the stigma of being a troubled area. When you look around now, it’s very well looked after, clean, gardens and play grounds are showing a pride and connected society.