Bartosz stares into space. The 49-year-old Pole, a man with long hair and a trimmed beard, is sitting at a table in the Pauluskerk in Rotterdam. It is busy in the day shelter for the homeless. A man watches a series on his phone. “Lekkaaaaah!”, shouts another after taking a bite of his cauliflower soup. Some take the plastic bags with their belongings from a locker and disappear into the night. In addition to Dutch, there are also many Slavic languages.
But Bartosz waits. It is almost eight o’clock and in an hour, he knows, the doors of the church, which is located in the center, will close, to the growing frustration of local politicians and residents who are fed up with the nuisance. Some men are sheltering from the thick snowflakes in front of the door.
In Poland, Bartosz managed a McDonalds branch and in better times worked as a specialist in financial services. But then the Covid pandemic came, his relationship collapsed and he decided to try it in the Netherlands. He worked in distribution centers, at the end for 300 euros a week. He then spent almost half of that on a room, the rest he spent on cans of soup and protein bars from Action. But he suffered pain in his back and shoulder from lifting. Away from job, away from home. That was almost a year ago.
On good days he now earns some money with deposits on cans and bottles. On days like today he sits inside waiting to go outside. Because it is difficult to dry up, he plans when he can be in which shelter. He is still looking for jobs, but, he knows, “you cannot survive on a minimum wage in the Netherlands.” And that damn shoulder, some days he can barely lift his arm, and he can barely even play basketball. He hopes for an office job, but thinks that his infallible English is insufficient and he must therefore improve his Dutch. And back to Poland? There is no house there either. „Housing,” he says, “kills everything”.
Because it is freezing, homeless people can go to night shelters elsewhere in the city. For homeless people with a connection to Rotterdam, says Pauluskerk coordinator Rinus Dekker, it is open all year round. But anyone who only came here to lift the boxes on which the Dutch economy runs day in and day out for a few hundred euros can only count on a bed on the coldest days. About 150 people came to church today, he estimates. If the temperature rises even one degree above zero, the doors close again. That is municipal policy. And if there is still ice on the streets, where should the homeless go? Dekker can’t help it either: “Go outside.”
Until then, Bartosz has a bed. He will wait as long as possible to go there, he says, because there are also addicts in the shelter who cause a nuisance. “It is not a good choice. But there is no choice.”
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