The winter shelter for the homeless in Amsterdam is bursting at the seams. The capital has 250 beds for winter shelters and another 250 for emergency cold-weather shelters, and they are all full. A spokesperson for councilor Rutger Groot Wassink (Social Affairs, GroenLinks) said on Wednesday that the municipality is looking at what it can do to find additional places.
According to the spokesperson, all beds that the municipality has available for winter shelter in the months of December to March are full. If the perceived temperature is below freezing or if the weather conditions are very bad for another reason, Amsterdam will make 250 extra sleeping places available for at least three days. The local GGD assesses whether these places are necessary.
In days of large numbers, the municipality can find an additional 38 beds, but all of these have also been occupied in recent nights. And it still wasn’t enough. “They are now doing everything they can at aid organizations to temporarily create extra sleeping places. I heard from an aid worker that he had placed a bunk bed in his fussy office,” said the spokesperson for councilor Groot Wassink. “We want to prevent people from having to sleep on the streets in this weather at all costs.”
According to the ANP news agency, the situation in Amsterdam is much more dire than in the other major cities. It is also busy there, but there is still enough capacity. In The Hague, 117 people slept in extra shelter during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, in Rotterdam 121 and in Utrecht 125. This is still below the maximum capacity everywhere. A spokesperson for the municipality of Utrecht says that walk-in locations are very busy during the day.
The spokesperson for councilor Groot Wassink has no explanation for the fact that so many more homeless people in Amsterdam are seeking shelter from the cold. “As the capital, we generally have more visitors.”
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