New pitches only for ‘real Alkmaarders’ and that’s bad luck for Kees, Pia and Bertus

After 35 years of uncertainty, the decision now seems to have been made: within 3 years, 31 new pitches will be added for Alkmaar caravan residents. The new policy includes agreements regarding the allocation of pitches. Only travelers who descend from an Alkmaar camp or have family living there will soon have a chance.

Dozens of travelers who were on a waiting list of stand rental company Woonwaard are being sidelined. The list contained about a hundred applicants. According to councilor Jasper Nieuwenhuizen, regulation is really necessary due to the scarcity. That list would also ‘never have had any status’, he says. “It was just an inventory.”

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And that hits hard for Kees (71) and Pia (65), who have been on that list for 29 years together. Next to them is 51-year-old Bertus, who has also been waiting for a position for more than 25 years. In protest, the trio has been squatting on a site on Alexander Flemingstraat in Oudorp since November last year. “We have been pushed into a corner for years and now again. It is high time we get a place,” Kees responds.

‘Everything together’

The occupied site has a few large caravans, two water tanks and a kitchen where Pia cooks for the camp every day. “We do everything together,” she says. “The four of us pay for the food and we drink a cup of coffee every day. We take care of each other and can rely on each other. Like two weeks ago, when one of my dogs died, everyone takes care of you.”

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Bertus was number two on the Woonwaard housing association’s previous waiting list for caravan residents. Because Alkmaar caravan residents and family members now have priority, he loses that place. Bertus may have been born at a camp in Alkmaar, but that location no longer exists.

Born in Alkmaarder

Nowadays, that land, where the Nollen car garage is now located, falls under the municipality of Dijk en Waard. This means he is not officially born in Alkmaar, explains Bertus. “I’ve been living here since the nineties, but I don’t have any family living at the camp.”

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Pia (65) was born in Haarlem and her husband Kees (71) in Hoorn, but, like Bertus, they live in Alkmaar almost all their lives. They do not understand why the municipality no longer takes individual cases into account. “Pia and Kees are already old, where should these people go now,” Bertus wonders out loud. “We were promised a location in Hoorn 6 years ago, but we were screwed then and we are screwed again now,” says Ria.

Fight on

Pia stirs her coffee while her dog jumps on her lap. “We were forced to live in an apartment for years, we were very unhappy there,” she explains. “Since we live here, we experience much more peace. We are also doing better in terms of health. This is our culture, this is how we want to live. We continue to fight for this and will only leave here if we get a place to work. Otherwise they have to just build a camp here.”

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Travelers have the right to live in a caravan, since caravan culture is protected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). A municipality must make that possible. “Go and sit in a house for a year, Woonwaard told me,” says Bertus. “After a few months I thought, what am I doing? Then I bought a camper and started wandering around again.”

Until 2018, the Netherlands had an ‘extinction policy’ for caravans. About 3,000 places have disappeared since the 1990s. The fact that a large group of Alkmaar travelers is now being pushed aside again is not acceptable to the three. “It is always said that there is no place, but there are now six locations in the picture. Build some more places for the really dire cases,” Bertus concludes.