The best time of the year is Christmas, right? But how festive is it if you have to live on the street? Then it is very different. For Dawid from Poland, for example, he lives on the street in Den Bosch: “I can get used to the cold, but Christmas time is difficult and depressing. I find it difficult to talk about, it reminds me too much of the past.” And Dawid is not the only one.
Krysztof doesn’t even want to talk about Christmas. He then has to think of the past, of the time with his daughter and ex-wife, who still live in Poland but with whom he no longer has contact. Krysztof and other homeless people visited street pastor Lianne van Oosterhout on Thursday afternoon. She has office hours. With a cup of coffee, a Christmas wreath and a nice chat with each other, she tries to create the atmosphere in her living room.
Daniël likes to talk about Christmas. He still has warm memories of Christmas back in the day. With his grandmother who, when she was still alive, kept the whole family together: “Christmas was a very nice time. My grandmother was a strong woman. But when she died, everything fell apart. There was no home anymore, so no Christmas either.”
“If you know what you’re missing, it’s doubly sad.”
Daniël feels this when he walks through the atmospheric shopping streets of Den Bosch: “If you know what you are missing, it is doubly sad when it is no longer there.” Daniël came to the Netherlands to work. He did that for at least ten years. He paid his bills, taxes, had a house. But now it’s all different. He was involved in a fight and then also had a car accident. There he lost his papers. “Now I can’t work anywhere anymore.”
Daniel cannot get new papers from Poland. He does work in Loods, a day care center in Den Bosch, where in addition to a roof, there is also food and camaraderie. Everyone receives a small amount for each day worked. “Luckily I have my friends here, and he points around. That’s my family now. They know what it’s like to be homeless.”
Homeless people from Den Bosch also come to street pastor Lianne for practical matters. Henryk hopes she can help him with his papers. It’s something that happens to many homeless people. If you lose your papers, you have no job and therefore no home. Henry knows it won’t be until next year before he gets his papers back. Until then, he can sleep in the homeless shelter every now and then. But during the day he walks through the streets of Den Bosch.
“There is work for about three weeks and then you are thrown out again.”
You can’t immediately tell from Dawid that he is homeless. But he is. Dawid moved from Poland to Great Britain with his mother when he was fifteen. That also explains why his English is so much better than that of the others.
Dawid worked for five or six months through an employment agency in the Den Bosch region. When the seasonal work ended, he immediately lost his accommodation. In the temporary employment sector, work and home are often linked. “So I was homeless for a few months, and then I was able to go back to work. I had a roof over my head again. But now Dawid is sleeping on the street again. Winter time is a difficult time to find work. “Just before Christmas, the employment agencies have enough work for about three weeks, but after that you are just as easily thrown out again.”
Dawid calls himself European. Brexit meant that he can no longer simply enter England to visit his two brothers. He would prefer to live in their area, but you need a visa for that since Brexit. “You get a visa if you have a job, a home and someone is also willing to act as a guarantor for you.” He can’t do that. Now he lives on the street, and has for a long time. In an empty factory building or in a tent.