The homeless shelter in Breda is not to blame for the death of client Daniël Bos. This was concluded by the supervisory authority GGD West Brabant after an investigation. Bos was found dead on July 14 last year in the 24-hour shelter on Slingerweg after he had taken designer drugs. Lawyer Peter Schouten, who represents the relatives, doubts whether proper investigation has been conducted.
In July 2023, Raisa Goedvriend, Bos’ fiancée from Roosendaal and mother of his three children, reported the incident to the police. The accusation against the so-called Throughflow Facility (DSV) where the alcoholic Bos died was formally ‘death by negligence’. According to her, he should have been better cared for and there was also a lack of proper supervision of drug use.
Supervisor GGD West Brabant decided to investigate this. The Stichting Maatschappelijke Opvang (SMO) Breda, to which DSV falls, then in turn engaged an independent agency to answer the questions that the supervisor had.
“The investigation has been completed and no culpable matters have emerged from our organization,” says director Judith Kuypers of the Stichting Maatschappelijke Opvang (SMO) Breda Foundation. “We have looked very broadly and there are issues that we need to discuss. We will address them.” Kuypers wants to leave the content at that.
“Whether it is culpable or not does not make it any less bad.”
However, she would like to say that Bos’ death has had an enormous impact on the Flow Facility. “It was very intense,” she says. “This does something to the organization and the people. Whether it is culpable or not, it does not make it any less bad. It is terrible that this happened. That is devastating.”
Lawyer Peter Schouten, who filed the report on behalf of Goedvriend, questions the investigative method on the forensic side. Something that is not part of the DSV. He had a conversation with Raisa Goedvriend at the Public Prosecution Service. “Several substances have been found in Daniël’s body, including designer drugs. But no investigation has been carried out into the quantity. Then you cannot determine what happened that evening. We are now looking at what we are going to do with the report and or we will litigate.”
The death of Daniël Bos was the low point in an already turbulent year at Doorstroomvoorzienig. The shelter received negative news coverage a number of times. For example, there was the homeless Thomas who was not allowed to enter for two months and protested on the Grote Markt in Breda. There were also complaints from other clients about the shelter.
“That does something to the image of our organization,” says Kuypers. “But if you zoom in a little more and see who is in here and what issues are at play, I think that very good work is being done. What is not going well is mainly made public, but the thank you letters do not appear in the newspaper.”
“Calamities cannot be prevented, but we have not made any major mistakes.”
“Calamities cannot be prevented,” Kuypers concludes. “So I’m not going to say that nothing more happens here. If only that were the case. That could hardly be otherwise if you are so close to each other with these people in this way. But no major mistakes have been made.”
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Thomas was not allowed to enter the shelter for two months, you can read his story here