She hasn’t slept on the street yet, yet 41-year-old Shaya Feltkamp is virtually homeless. Then there was a divorce. Since the sale of the joint house in 2019, she has not been able to find a home. She has been sleeping on couches and beds with friends and family for three years now. Now she is also in danger of losing her last refuge.
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Shaya’s situation first. She has three sons, two of whom (7 and 9 years old) now live full-time with her ex-husband in Purmerend. There is a visitation arrangement that stipulates that both parents have the right to see their children a number of days a week.
She really wants to live near her children because she says the situation is harmful to their development. Her eldest son Owen (20) from a previous relationship now lives with his grandfather. Shaya was rejected after she suffered a stroke in 2017. So she can no longer work. In 2020 she had a second stroke. She herself thinks that the great stress played a role in this.
chalet
When she was unable to find a home after her divorce in 2019, Shaya decided to buy a small chalet in a park on the Veluwe in Putten. She also knows people there. That way she could at least continue to see her children on weekends and holidays. Since she was not allowed to stay full-time at the park, she often slept with friends and family.
Shaya is now in danger of losing the chalet: boas noted on behalf of the municipality of Putten that she was in the chalet too often and believed that she lived there permanently. The park owner then decided that she should sell the chalet. It looks like she should be out by the end of the year. “It’s very stressful. I feel a lot of pressure now. Within now and four months I will have a really big problem,” she says.
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Two weeks ago my heart sank. Since her search began, she tried three times to obtain an emergency declaration for a social rental home near the municipality of Waterland. Now she was rejected again. The reason: her situation is not dire enough.
She disagrees: “The aid workers who have been involved with our family have also indicated that it is necessary for my two youngest children to see me as well.” NH Nieuws saw documents showing that Youth Care argued for an urgent declaration for Shaya, without result. “At the moment I am very much ready for peace and stability. It is very hard mentally to stay positive every time, but also physically,” she says.
Requests for urgency
Shaya is not the only one who appealed to the municipality of Waterland for urgency. Between 2020 and now 48 applications were received, both for socio-medical reasons and for informal care. Of those applications, 22 were granted.
The municipality of Waterland emphasizes that urgency is only granted in very exceptional situations, for example if there is a life-threatening or life-disrupting situation. Apparently Shaya’s situation is not life-disrupting enough.
The Woonbond sees that there are often very strict conditions for applying for urgency. “In practice, only a very small group is given priority,” says a spokesperson. The union does not think this is strange and also advocates restraint in granting urgency: “Because the more people you give priority, the longer others have to wait. There must simply be more supply in the social rental sector.”
For Shaya, the situation now feels hopeless. “You are so dependent on people. Three years is a long time for me, but also for the people who help me. They also have their own lives.”
She sighs. “My life has been standing still for three years.”
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