Hamit Karakus (born 22 February 1965) is a Turkish-Dutch politician and police officer, who previously served as a member of the Senate and as an alderman in Rotterdam.

After ten years of service and reaching the rank of police sergeant, he became deputy director of a real estate brokerage firm in 1998.

[5] He was also involved in investigating organized crime, and he served as a Turkish interpreter and a spokesperson about extortion by the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

[4] Karakus left the police in 1998 to work for the real estate brokerage firm Atta Makelaars as deputy director.

[6] Karakus was a proponent of adding skyscrapers to the city's skyline and was focused on dealing with slumlords, mortgage fraud, and nuisance from Eastern European migrant workers.

[6][9] Under his leadership, Rotterdam continued its policy of keeping out new renters living off welfare in certain disadvantaged neighborhoods to prevent their deterioration – known as the Rotterdamwet.

[11] To tackle problems surrounding the housing of Eastern European migrant workers, Karakus organized a summit for municipalities in December 2007.

[14] Later that year, Karakus established a new policy under which housing corporations could evict and refuse renters who have repeatedly disturbed their neighborhood.

His nomination as alderman was not supported by the members of Livable Rotterdam, who Karakus had accused of sowing hatred and division during the campaign.

[18] He continued his fight against slumlords in his second term, successfully calling on the national government to make it easier for the municipality to prohibit such landlords from renting and to expropriate their properties.

[22] An apartment building specifically for Eastern European migrants (Polenhotel) in Rotterdam was opened in early 2014 under Karakus's leadership to combat bad housing conditions.

[26] During the campaign, Karakus was criticized when he promised to a crowd in Turkish the construction of wedding halls, while the borough had the power to decide the issue.

[38] When Senator Jopie Nooren vacated her seat two years later because of a position at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Karakus filled the vacancy.

[43][44][45] Around that time, he became chair of a new independent five-member committee to advise the Rotterdam police on diversity, inclusivity, discrimination, and racism.