29 October 2025: I followed it up with a message explaining that I understand that they probably see me as a pain in the behind. Ms Engelhard didn’t reply to that either.
Let’s face it. A) The city permanently shut its doors to me in December 2024 and B) the fact that the city doesn’t even provide something as utterly basic as toilets probably says it all. They are not interested in remedying issues. They are just into cosmetics.
See also this research done at the University of Amsterdam. It’s a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of Global Perspectives on Homelessness, Law & Policy (pp. 175-187). Published in 2024. People went undercover, pretending to be homeless, as part of this research.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003274056-12
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/180146235/10.4324_9781003274056-12_chapterpdf.pdf
(copy and paste if you don’t trust links)
This is a follow-up to this previous post:
https://angelinasouren.com/2025/10/14/my-ongoing-discussion-with-the-city-of-amsterdam/
See also: https://angelinasouren.com/homelessnessness-in-the-netherlands/
Note that Ms Engelhard did not deny that the City’s behind the intimidation. (This may be why: Homeless people in Amsterdam are no longer fined, as of 13 June 2025. That is in theory. Have the regulations been updated or was this more empty waffling? https://www.dedaklozenvakbond.nl/2025/06/13/geen-boetes-meer/)
Looks like it: https://decorrespondent.nl/16264/buiten-moeten-slapen-dat-is-geen-overtreding-maar-een-onrecht/7774e412-2a4a-0572-05fd-b77458dbf41f There is still a large number of fines that can be imposed on homeless people (and my sense of what was happening around me was that it was geared toward being able to impose at least one on me; I haven’t stated what has been happening and what else I’ve been observing and that’s on purpose).
No, I am – clearly – no longer in negotiating mode or trying to keep anyone at the City of Amsterdam particularly happy. I am being cantankerous, from their point of view. I get that. Personally, I have very little to no faith left in these municipal circuses and the money-making industry that surrounds it. That’s now irrepairable.
I do understand why the municipality sees me as a pain in the behind but I’ve also contacted a different Dutch municipality about its homelessness challenges and took part in a discussion on the topic for London as well.
If I can help push through some improvements, with or without my cousin* pushing from the other side, then I might be quite happy.
(This cousin runs a large real estate undertaking in the mid-market housing segment – and in investing – so he might need to set up an extra company, which in itself is no big deal but entering a very different market segment would be. However, he could still push without doing that and he could also implement changes to existing practices because his existing tenants can easily be impacted too. I’d like to see him use empty office buildings that are too expensive to turn into “proper” apartments, such as the one in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost that I read about – possibly the former ING building? – for capsule housing. You could have two forms: Pods for currently homeless people – because you don’t sleep much at all in a hall with lots of mattresses on the floor and similar places – and larger capsules for young people who can’t afford a bloody fortune in rent but would like to be able to save. The real estate sector has a crappy reputation. My cousin could do break-even projects as a show of corporate responsibility. I know he would have to convince others too. He’s not Donald Trump. I know that. But where there is a will, there is a way. Maybe he can start a consortium with other real estate firms that would like to change the sector.)
The Netherlands is gridlocked in a crazy mess of regulations. That, too, needs to change urgently.
De volkomen bezopen waanzin van de Nederlandse hokjesgeest en verstikkende regelziekte… Lees dit: De regels versimpelen voor AOW’ers die willen samenwonen, scheelt de overheid potentieel honderden miljoenen. En er komen jaarlijks honderden tot duizenden extra woningen vrij.
No, I had not asked Ms Engelhard for help in March, but I was hungry and had called one of those centers where people in my situation are supposed to be able to get a meal, shower and do laundry (at a small fee). Their opening hours are limited and the need is FAR BIGGER than what these centers are still able to offer in terms of capacity. So far, Mayor Femke Halsema has been adamant that she won’t offer more support.
When I called this center, I was told that it was only available for people who were already registered there.
At the end of the call, I asked Ms Engelhard where I might be able to get a meal and I told her about this. Somehow, Ms Engelhard knew which center (inloophuis) I was talking about. I don’t know how she knew.
She informed me that I would be able to get a meal at a location that turned out to be west of Sloterplas, at about 7 kilometers (from where I was at the time, I think, which was east of Central Station). She mentioned a specific time.
I told her that I would not be able to make it.
I googled it later and it was a center for men, it said online, but I’ve found that the online information as to where and when you can find resources is often non-existent or contradictory.
Anyway, this wasn’t doable for me. I was dragging two suitcases and a heavy underseat cabin bag along with me. I already was exhausted.
One thing that the city definitely has to do if it continues on its course of sending people to the fringes of town all the time is give them (storage facilities, anyway, and) a public transport pass. If the City gives you a registered address, for example, then you’re obliged to go to the far Nieuw West once a week at a specific time, off the top of my head. Otherwise you will lose the address.
There are conditions tied to the benefits too that I can no longer meet. Ms Engelhard said that it would not take me that long to find new living quarters, but I reckon it would take 15 to 20 years.
Below are the two texts I had sent to the mayor. I think that these are the exact same versions, but there might be minor differences.
I was still in the middle of learning how to do homelessness. Sleep deprivation is such a huge factor initially that you quickly realize that it is vital to get enough sleep. (That is not an issue at all for me any longer.) After that, you discover that rain is actually the biggest problem. The worries about people freezing to death mostly concern the image of city councils etc. You can learn how to deal with cold, but rain makes you miserable, wet and muddy and powerless. There is very little you can do about it. Toilets are an issue too. There are almost no public toilets in Amsterdam. Most are for men only and even the ones for men are only for, eh, number 1?
I just also emailed the town of Beverwijk about its homelessness problem, btw. I sent them this link: https://www.lekkertehuur.nl/
Sleep deprivation, hunger and utter physical exhaustion – along with anger about getting treated like trash or like terrorists – are behind the symptoms that get homeless people vilified.
Anyway, with regard to what happened in December 2024: I tend to think of what happened as the result of me having emigrated to England in 2004, but I was in fact informed that the issue was that I hadn’t been staying in a tent or car but on someone’s couch.
Unfortunately, there’s nobody who can sign off as to whether or not you’ve been on the street (and there’s probably no form for it either). It was my understanding that I had to be on someone’s couch, perhaps so that someone could sign off. They said that there was an arrangement with the Amsterdam suburb that I was in at the time. Amsterdam runs over into it; there is no unbuilt environment in between.
I have a feeling that if I’d stayed in a tent, I’d have been told yet some other reason as to why I didn’t qualify.
(It’s also my understanding that municipalities HAVE to provide you with an official address nowadays, this Dutch condition without which you can’t do a thing, but apparently that too isn’t quite how it works in practice.)
PS
All this nonsense also created a lot of extra tension in the household that I had been staying in and pressure on the person who had offered me the couch. He was now going to be the one who was “kicking me out”, but the situation really was untenable. It was NOT HIS RESPONSIBILITY TO RESOLVE my mess and it was not within his power. I was supposed to have had a job, with another one lined up and I also had expected to have a vehicle.
The story about the job that suddenly fell apart for which I had already worked a shift deserves a blog post of its own, but I don’t want to dwell on it any longer. The fact that it fell through also forced me to break off my application process for a job with NS, which would have been quite happy to have me, was my impression. (I’d gone to a Meet & Greet in Amsterdam.)
I have closed off that part of my life and am eager to move on. I already spent far too many years climbing the walls in Portsmouth, even slept on some days because not being able to do anything – literally – is extremely frustrating but when you’re asleep, you’re not aware of it.
