Gypsy caravan residents in Haarlemmermeer are happy and hopeful now that the municipality has promised to create 21 new caravan sites. Sno new caravan sites have been added since 1986, so that dThe last generations have either been chased out of the caravan camps or still live with their parents.
Barry Joren (47) has been fighting for the interests of caravan dwellers for years. “Since the new board has been in place, we can’t complain. They are really open to it,” he says. “We have good hopes, but will always remain skeptical and have a little mistrust. We still have to actually find locations and start building them.”
Turning the tide
“I can well understand that after all these years of waiting, the caravan dwellers are still a bit sceptical,” says alderman Marjolein Steffens. “But that 2023 will be the year in which the tide turns seems almost certain. The policy is there, now the implementation.”
The article continues under the map with the current caravan pitches in Haarlemmermeer.
The caravan community now consists of 58 pitches, spread over twelve small camps. Existing camps and new locations are being examined to see whether additional pitches can be added. This year, another location will be designated where additional caravan pitches will be built, the municipality reports.
“There is actually no caravan resident who wants to move into a house”
For the caravan dwellers, speed is especially important. “For us it’s a simple story: just about any location is good,” he says. “There is actually no caravan resident who wants to move into a house.” As an example, he talks about Peter Kolf (37) who, out of necessity, still lives with his mother and has fought with him for more caravan sites.
As soon as the 21 extra pitches have been realised, the municipality will apply the rule that 3 new pitches will be designated for every 2,000 new homes. “It should have been done all along,” says Barry. “That was the mistake of the municipality, and actually the whole of the Netherlands.”
The caravan culture has been intangible cultural heritage since 2014 and a recognized form of housing since 2016. Until five years ago, municipalities allowed caravan centers to ‘extinct’. The European Court of Human Rights and the National Ombudsman ruled in 2018 that municipalities’ ‘extinction policy’ for caravan camps was discriminatory and should be abolished.
Distrust
The distrust in Haarlemmermeer was partly caused by an empty promise from the municipal council in 2017. After an investigation into the needs of caravan residents, the municipal executive promised at the time to look for a location for additional pitches. Five years later, there were still no positions added.
That is why the city council urged action in 2022 with the motion ‘More care for the caravan’. The mayor and aldermen are implementing that motion with the policy memorandum of the Gypsy Vehicle Policy.
“We have a lot to do with discrimination,” says Barry’s daughter Delilah Devany (22). She herself has a five-month-old daughter. They still live with her older sister with her mother in the caravan in Nieuw-Vennep. “Now that there is a note, I have the feeling that things are moving forward. If they start fulfilling the promises, the faith in the church will come back.”
“My little bedroom is now a mini family home”
Delilah wants to live in her own trailer with her boyfriend and child. “I had given up hope,” she says. “It’s very nice with my mother, but of course it’s not the ideal situation. My little bedroom is now a mini-family home. And privacy, you don’t really have that.”
Feeling of safety
Leaving the trailer park is not an option for Delilah. “The family around you, the sense of security, the door that is always open: you can always rely on people here. That is the best place for us to raise your children,” she says. “As long as there is no place for us, we will continue to live together in a cozy environment.”
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Delilah prefers to stay in the trailer park where she is now, “but it is in the middle of a residential area and is built on all sides with houses”. She hopes to be able to continue living in Nieuw-Vennep. “Preferably no further than five to minutes from my mother,” she says. “The closer the better.”
“In our culture you should live together in a large group, with your whole family”
Mina Bauer (57) lives in the caravan camp on IJweg in Hoofddorp. She recognizes Delilah’s story. “I am afraid that my brother, son and grandchildren will soon be given a place outside Hoofddorp.” Next to her caravan camp is a large allotment garden. “If they make room for that, my family can stay here. In our culture you should live together in a large group, with your whole family. But those small camps pull us apart again.”
In the song below, Mina’s son, Guus Bauer, sings about their culture under the stage name Steffan de Kust.
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The municipality will determine for whom the new trailer parks will be, but Barry has argued for family members to be put together. “It’s our culture that you take care of your parents and grandparents, and you look out for each other.” It is not yet clear how the municipality will select. However, the municipality has announced that residents who have a connection with Haarlemmermeer will be given priority.
Barry himself is forced to live in a house in Rijsenhout. When he got divorced six years ago, he left the trailer park in Nieuw-Vennep. “Of course I would have preferred to stay, but there was no room,” he says. “And in our culture it is customary that your wife and children are allowed to stay in the caravan during a divorce.”
A place for the kids
Barry would love to come back to the trailer park. “But I have to be realistic: there are not enough places for that,” he says. The municipality has now promised 21 places. According to Barry, it takes at least 42 places to accommodate everyone. “If there is not enough space and I have to choose between a place for myself or for my children, then I choose my children.”
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