The Social Shop in Assen immediately closed its doors after part of the ceiling collapsed during visitor time last week. This is enough for the owners: they say they have been pushing for better accommodation for much longer.
The customer base, consisting of about seven hundred people, cannot go for free or cheap clothing for the time being. Students also lose their internships and people lose their jobs, regrets Anneke Bakker of the Budget Support Foundation. “It is a sad situation. The Social Shop meets a huge need, but has not been safe for a long time. That became very clear last week. We can only temporarily close our store, also because asbestos may have been released when the ceiling plates come down.”
Bakker hopes that they will soon be assigned another building by the municipality. A restart at the AHG Fokkerstraat is also possible, but she would rather not see it happen given the state of the building. “This has been irresponsible for a long time. Now that this incident has occurred, there is no other way,” she explains the provisional closure.