The history of SJHT

The foundation for housing young people in Twente finds its origin in "Technische Hogeschool Twente" ( now University Twente). From its foundation in 1964 this institute has had a campus where students were obliged to live. A number of students, however, preferred to live in Enschede or Hengelo and protested against this obligation, which was duly cancelled in 1974.

Students tried to find houses to be rented in Enschede and Hengelo. People who let houses were rather apprehensive at first. Students did not have very good reputations for paying rent and taking good care of their rooms. In order to solve the problem of liability the foundation for housing students in Twente (SSHT) was raised by students, with the co-operation of the Technische Hogeschool Twente, on 18 March 1968.

Roughly, the development of the foundation in the past years can be divided into two periods. The first, from 1968 till 1976 can be characterized as a pioneer's phase: the foudnation was run by volunteers only. The second, from 1976 until now, shows -apart from a significant growth of the number of dwellings- a high degree of professionalism.

In 1989 SSHT broadened its target group. Apart from housing students, they started to accommodate young people with a minimum income. At the same time they changed their name into SJHT (Stichting Jongeren Huisvesting Twente/ Foundation for housing young people in Twente). Now the foundation lets a total number of 970 dependent, single-person-independent and two-person-independent units. All these units are either owned or rented by SJHT.