All small entrepreneurs in Feijenoord feel the inflation: ‘Do I have to wash my customers’ hair cold?

Hairdresser Vedat Nazli stops cutting, grabs his phone and opens his banking app. He shows it: an amount of 1,745 euros has been written off in energy costs. He looks at it as if he is seeing it for the first time. “Before this I paid around 250 euros.” He scrolls down with his thumb. “Yes, here, look! 232 euros.”

His hair salon ‘New Class’ is located on the Beijerlandselaan in Rotterdam, sandwiched between ‘Emirdag Köftecisi’, where you can eat Turkish lamb meatballs on Turkish bread, and ‘Tandoori/Rotishop Kashmir Sweets’. Vedat Nazli has been there for eighteen years. “It is difficult to save on energy,” he says. “You can’t ask customers to come in a thick sweater. You can’t wash their hair with cold water or say, ‘Blow-dry at home’.”

At the same time, he sees that customers come less. “Gentlemen normally come every two or three weeks, now they sometimes wait five weeks. Ladies are going to dye their hair at home.”

How further?

He tries to pay the bills while he can. With a sigh he closes the banking app, puts his phone in his pocket and picks up the scissors again.

New Class is located in the Rotterdam-Feijenoord district, near Hillesluis (average gross annual income: 17,800 euros). In the surrounding neighborhoods of Bloemhof, Afrikaanderwijk and Vreewijk, the annual income is not much higher.

Feijenoord is a different part of the city. Rotterdammers like to show it to their visitors from outside the city. At least, the edge of Feijenoord, close to the Nieuwe Maas. Coming from the north, from Central Station for example, take the Erasmus Bridge or a water taxi. Then cycle, drive or sail into an impressive skyline of skyscrapers and a cruise terminal. Tourists visit the photo museum, the ‘food halls’, or have a drink in the New York hotel. Some walk on to Katendrecht, once a rough working-class neighbourhood, now ‘hip-up’ and full of restaurants, bars and shops. Or they look at the innovative new residential area of ​​Kop van Zuid (gross annual income 52,600 euros).

Visitors usually don’t go any further. But Feijenoord (76,595 inhabitants, slightly less than Lelystad) is much larger. More to the south, the environment changes. There are also new blocks there, for sure. But also many old, sometimes poorly maintained houses. There are hardly any stores of large chains, but there are a lot of small entrepreneurs and shopkeepers, such as hair salon New Class.

In those poorer neighborhoods of Feijenoord, the conversations on the street and in the shops are not only about the increased energy prices. They are about money. Or better: about a lack of money. Because not only gas and light are becoming more expensive, everything is becoming more expensive.

“A kilo of garter costs between 13 and 17 euros per kilo,” says Mukseh Ramautar, owner of snack bar / eatery Pretoria in the Afrikaanderwijk. “That was 6 euros,” he says, as he drives the delivery scooters outside. “Ten liters of frying oil went from 19 euros to 38 euros. Ex VAT!”

Because he doesn’t like to gamble, he fixed his energy rate until 2025. For that he thanks God on his bare knees, because he already pays almost 1,500 euros a month. “You have to bake a lot of chips for that.” Cutting back is difficult, he can’t lower his ovens and deep-fat fryer. His business, he’s been there for 28 years, is going well, but he has to be very careful. Ramautar tries to purchase as cheaply as possible from various wholesalers. Because he doesn’t want to raise his prices – he can’t do that to his customers, in his opinion. By the way, many can no longer afford even a simple cod or pom sandwich.

Miriam Johri, owner of Haman Cleopatra, also faces this problem. She leads the way to a room with humming boilers and a jumble of pipes. Heat is her business model and it is generated there. Her whole building has underfloor heating, the Turkish steam bath is constantly 50 degrees. In the bathroom where the masseuses walk around in slippers and in T-shirts, a foaming soap bag in hand, it is 35 degrees. Women bathe in warm water on the shiny, warm tiles.

She does not yet know how high her energy tariff will turn out, but she is holding her breath with her consumption. Perhaps Johri will increase the entrance fee by 2 euros. She thinks she can’t go any higher, she wants to remain accessible. “I’m not in Hilversum or Wassenaar.” When paid parking in the neighborhood was expanded from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., she immediately noticed that the evenings became quieter. Insha’allah it’s going to be okay, she says. “Otherwise I’ll just have to pay the benefit.” She laughs loudly.

Invisible poverty

All those small entrepreneurs in Feijenoord, often with a migration background, all feel the energy crisis and inflation. Saving money is difficult because they simply need all that gas and electricity to run their business. However, small entrepreneurs with high energy costs will increase the increase above a certain threshold from this month get half compensatedalthough the payment may take a while due to European rules.

Social workers are even more concerned about the invisible poverty among the customers of all those businesses. They see that people turn off the lights earlier, they hear that people are out in the cold because they don’t dare to turn on the stove. You notice it in the people, says Rozanne Boelijn of welfare organization SOL. “There is more gloom. So many problems don’t make you happy.” Welfare workers assume that about a third of the residents of Hillesluis, Bloemhof, Afrikaanderwijk and Vreewijk live around the subsistence level. A setback such as a higher energy bill immediately leads to problems.

Take Sue-Ellen (37), without a last name for privacy reasons NRC, who lives in Bloemhof with her two daughters aged fourteen and six. In their cozy living room with pink walls, the girls have settled on the couch, in front of the television. Sue-Ellen says she only showers twice a day. “For the Dutch, that is still a lot, but on Curaçao everyone showers three times a day. At least.”

She has adopted more of the Dutch culture, she says. Namely “the house suit”. Dressing warmly when you are at home with a sweater and, for example, jogging pants is typically Dutch, she thinks. “I was used to dressing comfortably at home. But then the heating has to be turned up when it’s cold. Most Antilleans and Surinamese enjoy tropical temperatures, but I am now used to grabbing a blanket.”

She finds it difficult to leave baking cakes and bread. “That’s my hobby and it makes me zen.” Fortunately, cooking is not the biggest energy guzzler, she understands. That’s still the heating. The big problem is the insulation of her house. She opens the door to her bedroom: the outer wall is almost entirely made of glass. It’s chilly and drafty.

Benefits scandal

Debts are no stranger to Sue-Ellen. The benefits scandal also affected her. She received a compensation amount of 30,000 euros, with which she first paid off all creditors. With the money she had left, she bought her mother’s jewelry back from the pawn shop and booked a weekend getaway. After that, the money was more or less gone.

Sue-Ellen stopped working as a maternity nurse two years ago after a burnout. She and her daughters now live on benefits. That’s not big, but a year ago they just came out if they didn’t do crazy things. But now that everything is getting more expensive, she finds herself filling one hole with another. And that’s a bad sign. Half of the 1,200 euros that comes in every month is spent on rent. Energy costs are now 142 euros per month, but she fears an increase. She opens the Essent app. “I watch it very often.” She pays more and more attention to what she buys in the supermarket – “not just A-brands, although the house-brand cornflakes are just not tasty”.

food parcels

The number of residents in Feijenoord who are unable to make ends meet is growing. That used to be the case, but the line at the food bank that distributes food packages once every two weeks next to the Afrikaanderplein has recently been longer. The community centers in Feijenoord have set up walk-in consultation hours where residents can go with questions about the energy bill and receive help with applying for the energy allowance – because not everyone speaks enough Dutch, others do not have DigiD.

In the community center of the Afrikaanderwijk, the waiting room is already full on Monday morning. Hammadi Ajmidar of welfare organization SOL, who commutes between different community centers, sees this everywhere. “Forty or fifty people pass by in a morning. People used to come in with questions about language lessons or courses. Now it’s all about money problems.”

It’s not just people on social assistance benefits, he says. More and more often, workers come by who see their energy tariffs flipped four times – from 150 to 600 euros, for example. Ajmidar: “Sometimes the energy bill is higher than the rent.”

According to Ajmidar, it is important that residents receive help as early as possible. “People are ashamed and start borrowing from family and friends first. Only when that is no longer possible and the debts are really substantial, do they seek help.”

Mr. and Mrs. Pols from Bloemhof still consider themselves lucky that years ago they refused a renovation of their house by the housing association, they say. As a result, they now only pay 300 euros in rent, while the others in the block pay 600 to 700 euros. It does mean that they have no central heating and have to heat the entire house (living room and two bedrooms) with one gas heater. That is not a problem, says Jannie Pols (82). “Daan can’t stand a warm bedroom.”

They’re frugal, but they’ve always been frugal. That’s how you are when you grow up just after the war, they say. “And we just eat what we feel like,” says Jannie Pols (82). “You used to have the dining room for poor people. There you could get a prakkie if there was not enough money at home for food.”

Daan Pols (84): “And you went to the market, for the apples with a spot.”

Mrs Pols: „We did homework. Just at the living room table. Select brown beans. Peasing. Put advertising brochures in a bag. Then you had some extras.”

Mr Pols: “People have also become spoiled. They have a lot of wishes. I was happy with a hoop and a top, don’t come with the youth of today.”

Back to the Afrikaanderwijk where Mukseh Ramautar, owner of eatery Pretoria, notices a deeper problem. The money in the Netherlands is not distributed fairly, he says. “The poor must make all the sacrifices. Rich people put solar panels on their roofs to lower their energy bills. Poor people don’t have money for that. Moreover, they are in a rented house. That’s how they stay poor.”