Sleeping in the car every night: “A lot of people will have to do this soon”

Jeroen has been homeless for about ten years. He lost his houseboat after he became seriously ill and his relationship ended. He subsequently failed to find a new home and was refused entry into reception centres.

“You get turned away everywhere,” he says. “You’re not one of us. That’s such a calibrated answer. It doesn’t matter where you go.”

For the past ten years he tried everything. For example, he slept with the urban nomads and in a refugee camp in France. So now he sleeps in a car with his dog. That car is too small to fully lie in it. “I also sleep in a fetal position in the back seat. But at some point you get such a strong urge to stretch, it’s unbelievable.”

It is not a situation that Barbra Velthuizen, director of Healthcare at HVO-Querido, is surprised about. “Unfortunately, we see that a lot and throughout the Netherlands. It is distressing and it is of course a situation you never want to end up in.”

Velthuizen thinks that rising inflation and higher energy prices are causing an even greater number of homeless people. “I am concerned. We are really dealing with scarcity on several fronts. I think it also means that we have to look at it in a different way. And we have to organize our lives with each other in a different way. I think we need each other in that regard. support, because we will still be in this together for the time being.”

Jeroen thinks it will soon be numbers that are comparable to the situation in American cities. “Make no mistake about what the people who are still well off can expect in the next ten years. Because things are only going to get more expensive. A lot of people will end up like me. Only then maybe without a car.”

Jeroen hopes to be able to buy an affordable camper for him soon, so that he can sleep better and his dog also has a better place.