6 months Ago
Supportive Systems Help, But Families Face Challenges
In a district of Amsterdam Zuidoost, support mechanisms for unhoused children are overstretched. Even the emergency cases to the housing families have a waiting period of six to eight months", says Nienke Jaarsma of the Parent and Child Team in the Bijlmer area. Spartan shelter conditions are representative of the challenge many face to find temporary housing, forcing parents to rent garages just for a roof over their heads.
In Blijmerhorst Primary School, approximately one in twenty pupils are homeless, but that figure could be even higher, bridge officer Ester Muriani said. To accommodate them, the school offers all students lunch and access to showers and laundry. "We recognize there are more children in need than we are seeing," Muriani said.
Disaster Fund, and Parents Are Filling in the Gaps
The Youth Education Fund, which typically provides supplies for learning, is now providing hotel stays for families who have nowhere else to go. Root cause is the shortage of housing "Family breakup plays a major role in this, causing one parent becoming homeless," director Hans Spekman said.
A divorced single mother from Amsterdam, whose husband left her last year, described how she and her three children lived in a building hallway for two months. "That was hell. A true hell," she told me, explaining how her children are in bed at 4:30 a.m. and too tired to do homework in the evenings. Her experience is emblematic of a growing problem that persists to this day and affects countless other families around the country.
