Growing group of working homeless people in Netherlands
The housing crisis has created a whole new and growing group of homeless people in the Netherlands: the economically homeless. This group consists of people who have a paid job, but end up on the street because they simply can’t find anywhere to live, EenVandaag reports.
Marcel van de Ven set up the Stichting Binnenslapers in Rotterdam to specifically help this group. “It is an essentially completely new target group,” he told EenVandaag. "Due to the enormous housing shortage, you see more and more people who, for example, cannot find a home due to a divorce or the expiration of a temporary rental contract, and end up on the streets as a result."
This group is large and growing, Van de Ven said. “I dare say that in Rotterdam alone, we have 8,000 to 9,000 economically homeless people.”
“Many people often associate homelessness with people taking cans out of dumpsters, who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, and who have severe mental health issues. But these are just people like you and me,” Van de Ven told EenVandaag. “People who work, have their lives in order, and actually lead a normal existence. Until the bomb drops and they no longer have a home.”
This group of homeless people is largely invisible because they don’t get help from the municipality, Van de Ven said. They have a job, an income, and often a social network. “So then someone gets the label of self-reliance, and that’s the end of it.”
But according to Van de Ven, municipalities need to start offering help to economically homeless people, even when they appear to have everything together. “If you are homeless for two weeks, your head stops working. Then, you are purely surviving, and your life becomes one big mess,” he said. People can deteriorate very quickly. “And then alcohol or drugs suddenly come into play with all the consequences that entail.”
EenVandaag spoke to a man who was helped by Stichting Binnenslapers. The man, who spoke under the pseudonym Jaap, became homeless with his 5-year-old son after separating from his wife.
“I have a job; I take the little one to school. But I really don’t want people in the schoolyard staring at me,” he said, explaining why he’d rather tell his story anonymously. He believes people will look at him differently if they knew he was homeless. “Even though I really can’t help it.”
At first, Jaap and his son spent the night on friends’ couches. They then temporarily moved in with Jaap’s mother, but that could not last long because she lives in a senior citizens’ residence. “So I wasn’t allowed to live there, certainly not with a child.”
When the options ran out, Jaap and his 5-year-old ended up sleeping in his car, parked far away from the city. It affects Jaap deeply when he thinks back to that period. “I was mostly angry and sad; it made me feel very bad about myself,” he told EenVandaag. “You think you’re doing everything right, and then this happens. I just want the best for my little boy.”
Jaap was turned away by the municipality because he was “self-reliant.” That felt very unfair, he said. “I sometimes thought: maybe I should quit my job, then I would get help,” he said. “If I start collecting benefits and play the victim, then the government will suddenly be there.”
Jaap eventually found his way to Stichting Binnenslapers, which gave him and his son a room in its “transient hotel” for three months, along with a buddy to help him find other accommodation. Thanks to a foundation, he has a home in sight, Jaap said. “I am very happy to have some kind of perspective again.”
He tries to mainly distract his son from their situation. “I tell him that we are in a hotel and that it is a sort of vacation. I think he is still a bit young to realize what is going on. Fortunately, in a way.”
