Tours through a homeless past
A brief biography
Trying to give a concise explanation of why anyone ends up living on the streets is an impossible thing to do. Peoples lives are rich and complicated, and if you ask three different people why their friend is now homeless, you might get three different answers. In the following pages Im going to lay out a short account of the reasons why Jan went from having his own company to sleeping on the streets of Utrecht for four years.
Like most young men he was fit and full of energy, working three nights a week in a rock bar while maintaining a full time construction job during the week. He was busy saving money and having fun. However, construction sites are dangerous places, and at the age of 22 Jan had a very serious accident, falling 37 metres from some scaffolding, he broke both his legs and one arm. This forced him through two years of physiotherapy in order to recover and be able to work again. But fortunately, he also recieved 100'000 euro in compensation from his employer, which Jan decided to invest in his own pavement construction buissiness. This was going quite well until his accountnt at the time stole all of the companies money, leaving the country with an amount equivalent to 300'000 euros. This was a particularily bad time in Jans life, as during the same period both of his parents died.
Feeling despondent and in need of a change, Jan withdrew the last of his money from his bank account with the intention of hitting the road and seeing what the rest of Europe had to offer. From Zeist he went to Utrecht, where he intended to catch a train South towards France. There was no train leaving that evening so he decided to spend the night outside the post-office in the city centre. This was to be the defining moment in his life for the next four years. He met some people there, with whom he took cocaine and heroin. This continued for a few days, and with his readily available funds, they were happy to be his friends for awhile, until all of his money was gone.
They left Jan without any money and a newly developed heroin addiction to cater for. He had to adapt to the streets and find ways to support his expensive habit. To do this he developed a technique for stealing packets of coffee from supermarkets, and selling them to other outlets for a reduced price. During the day he wondered around making money in this way, and at night he would get high, sleeping and spending his time in a variety areas frequented by the homeless community. These included "The Hoog Catharijne", the centre of the homeless and drug problem of Utrecht at the time. The place was overrun by those living on the streets, and the atmosphere was highly charged with desperation and aggression. Sometimes, when things were bad, and he really needed drugs he had to visit "The Tunnel", a long subterranean street of the Hoog, where the people lived often out of fear of the police. These were escaped prisoners, rapists, murderers, basically anyone who didn't want contact with the outside world. Jan witnessed horrible things happen there, for example a guy that lit another guy on fire and burned him to death over drug money. The feeling in the tunnel was so horrible that Jan naturally avoided it as much as possible.
He lived this life for years, and has countless stories and valuable insights on the culture of the time. But after awhile he had enough and decided to try and kick his heroin addiction for good. Getting involved with "Streetnews", a magazine that people can buy to directly help the homeless, he attempted to straighten himself out. He was finding it too difficult to quit heroin without support, so he decided to do something radical, by purposefully getting himself arrested for shop-lifting. This earned him two weeks in jail for a string of previous offences, which provided him with the environment he needed to weaken the grip heroin had on him.
Things started to improve after this period, he regained his position with "Streetnews" and found lodgings in a hostel that allowed the use of drugs. While he had several minor set-backs on the road to drug-sobriety, he finally made to where he is now today.
Jan now works as a tour guide within the city, where he relays firsthand experience of this turbulent history of the cities past, he has turned his whole situation around into one of profit that helps him earn a living and repay some outstanding debts. He now lives in an apartment through the social housing scheme and enjoys life growing his own food.