The recent ETHOS census (*) shows that there are some 11,000 homeless people in Amsterdam, with a much higher percentage of outdoor sleepers than in the rest of the country. In the street scene, this can no longer be missed. What is behind this? And more importantly, what can be done about it? Experts get their say. Episode 1: the manager
This article by Gijs de Swarte was taken from https://dekanttekening.nl/
"I find the word crisis a bit tricky," says Janneke van Loo, eloquent philosopher, manager of the ten capital city walk-in centres and working for twenty-five years in helping those who need it most. We are in the headquarters of De Regenboog Groep: a beautiful Amsterdam School-style building on the IJ River, where bargee children were once taught. The place is bustling, in a now recognizable Rainbow fashion: cozy friendliness in a somewhat untidy setting, on a foundation of unmistakable work ethic. Something needs to be done, and done. And it should. Because, Van Loo says, as things stand now, it's not good.
'There are too few rental properties and what there is is too expensive.'
'The word crisis is somewhat devalued,' she continues. 'As far as I'm concerned, a crisis is an arterial bleed in which everyone, but everyone, goes running. In this case, with 11,000 homeless people in the capital alone, that would mean claiming everything we can house people in: all the empty offices, vacation homes, anti-squat properties. That's not what's happening right now. Nor are politicians jumping to the table. But if you ask me, "Is it going to be good then?", I say no. Good is when we are no longer needed, or approaching that point, at whatever rate. Emphatically not good is the direction things are going right now. So much for the philosopher in me, but in summary: there is indeed something unbearable going on.'
De Regenboog Groep in Amsterdam is right in the middle of it. I imagine that this has not become clear to you only thanks to the recent census.
'Well no, that would be crazy if your feet were in the mud. It should be noted that although the situation here corresponds to national trends, it goes a bit further. Here, for example, we have twice as many outdoor sleepers in percentage terms as in the rest of the Netherlands. Still, I am very glad that this count is there."
What has improved as a result?
'The nice thing is that there is now an official figure that establishes urgency. In previous counts by the Central Bureau of Statistics - which, of course, has enormous authority - many things were not included: no people under eighteen and over sixty-five, no people without citizen service numbers, no economically homeless people. Those are people who don't have a home, but can still sleep with others.'
This last problem is now much more visible, I understand. And it's big.
'Yes, and that is somewhat of a surprise: that includes many women. Fifteen hundred children are homeless. Thirty percent of all homeless people are women, but in our walk-in centres we only see half of them. And just because you don't see them under a bridge doesn't mean they are doing well. There is tremendous stress and exploitation, and I'm talking about rent payments in kind. There are mothers with children among them. That's just a tragedy. We encounter that. Friday afternoon five to five a broken family at your desk: that's not wrong. With "Sorry dear people, we're about to close, Monday you'll be the first" you won't get there. Then you have to act. We choose our employees accordingly. But above all it outlines the enormous stress on the system.'
'All those people from other European countries coming here: that has to change.'
What are the causes of the current situation?
'There are several causes. We were founded in 1975, when the heroin epidemic played a big role. Homelessness is defined in different ways, so numbers vary, but in the decades after that we got a reasonable grip on it. And now we are sinking back as a country. For starters, there is the huge housing problem. There are too few rental properties and what there is is too expensive. Divorce, redundancy or depression are all now real causes of homelessness, whereas before a move was often still a solution. And homelessness causes negative acceleration on many fronts.'
And then, of course, there is the way migrant workers are treated.
'Most of the outdoor sleepers are from other European countries. They really didn't come here to sleep under a bridge. The golden mountains often turn out to be insecurity and exploitation. Being unable to work again leads to loss of housing, and then shame and lack of money get in the way of the journey back. This is accompanied by, or leads to, addiction problems. If you have to brush your teeth with beer, it's a long way back.'
What do you think are the solutions?
'If you name the causes, you automatically come across the solutions. All those people coming here from other European countries: that has to change. It is not an easy discussion, but we cannot solve it all here. Something has to be done at the European level, also because European regulations underlie it. Furthermore, we need, obviously, much more affordable housing, for decades. There is speculative vacancy in the city that can be exploited. And very specifically, we need more walk-in centres. The term crisis may have been devalued, but maybe it's time to revalue it, so we can all really get moving again.'
(*) The European Union's ETHOS methodology counts not only people living on the streets, but also people in temporary shelters, people coming out of institutions and people temporarily bivouacked with family or friends.