The Junk Tunnel

Jan:"The junk tunnel was the lowest of the lowest of society. People that weren’t worth the daylight, and wouldn’t be exposed to the outside world. You would sit here between rapist and murderers. There was a core group that lived here, who would be provided with little balls of cocaine and heroin by the dealers, who’d buy their drugs to us. Easily 10,000 euros were transacted here every hour."

Underneath shopping mall Hoog Catherijne in Utrecht existed a dark world. “The Junk tunnel” as it was called, showed Utrecht’s darkest side. Big groups of drug users would sit on cross sides of the tunnel beneath fake lightning, bowed over their dope. The street was filled with trash and broken bike locks. The narrow bays surrounding the loading doors would serve a double purpose: As an urinary and as an user’s space. People were dealing, using and rummaging. Together with an inner core of eighty dealers and addicts, around threehunderd other users would visit the tunnel to buy their drugs.

Alderman Hans Spekman: “It was a hell, they would sleep in their own shit and piss. The hierarchy would determine what would happen there, like abuse and rape. It was terrible, for the people and for the city. People quickly have a romantized image of the tunnel. But that place wasn't a solution. Not only was it human degrading, it had a honeypot effect on the addicts.”

Hans Spekman was alderman of social affairs in the city counsil of Utrecht at the time. Quickly after his nomination, he saw that it was time for a change in policies in Utrecht. He decided that It couldn’t go on this way and took a progressive approach in dealing with homelessness. The measurments he took are described on the following page.

Jan: "One time there was a boy here that was selling drugs for a dealer. He was sleeping here, through the tunnel carton and palets were layed down so that people could sleep. And the boy had recieved 50 little balls of heroin and 50 little balls of cocaine from the dealer, but he took too much of them for himself. So the dealer was waiting here until the boy was sleeping, walked to his car and grabbed a jar of gasoline. He poured it over him and just lit the boy on fire because he couldn't pay the dealer back. These harsh things would happen here, you know.