door

Faces Places

13/02/2019

Around me, I see a few dimmed lights warming up the bare walls, a cosy, narrow mattress squished under a bunk to make more headspace, a bookshelf cluttered with knick-knacks, and a minefield of boxes and rucksacks on the floor, their contents waiting to occupy the few corners that there are. If you haven’t guessed it already, I recently moved - into a student room - here in the city.

The process isn’t exactly straightforward, firstly due to all my hoarding in the last couple of years. But where we find a limit, friends usually pitch in. Unlike my last ‘verhuizing’ on a bike trailer, this one took a van. But much to my disappointment, it turns out that many rentals are unwilling to accept a non-Dutch European driver’s license because “they have had problems in the past”. Anyway, the logistics make up the tiniest fraction of the moving trauma that Eindhoven is.

I think that trouble is worth the move to a likeable student house, humbler in some ways than the last. A new set of faces to share the space with, a yet unexplored neighbourhood, and at long last a living room and a backyard. Those last bits really felt like an odd luxury, having inhabited nearly functional homes the last few years. 

Words fail to describe the dire housing situation; my own faith in agencies, Facebook groups and kamernet has only waned over the last few years and I’ve therefore resorted to scavenge on places vacated by friends. It is truly the survival of the grittiest, it’s for those who do not collapse of the endless messages and phone calls, and the very frequent disappointment. It’s like looking for a job; although maybe looking for work is sometimes easier. And it hit me hardest when I was searching for a tenant to replace me at the old room. A few minutes into my Facebook post, the inbox had already been invaded with inquiries and requests, some more desperate than others.

I felt great pity, for shelter is as basic a need as it gets. And what was especially disheartening was the lengths to which some requests would go to in order to secure a roof, the offer for extra rent, some extra cash “on the side” for me, the willingness to take the room up without visiting, anything goes. And the stories were not one to inspire hope either, rough-sleepers crashing at camp-sites, garages and the classic couch-surfer. I have been out in the cold before as well, sending out optimistic, delicately-crafted inquiries (often translated in polite, broken Dutch for #dutchonly listings) which felt more like crying into the void, visiting the ominous ‘kijkavonden’ that screamed rejection right after the handshake, and the waiting lists with agencies that crawled ahead ever so slowly.

And it’s not as if there isn’t enough room in the city, places are popping up every few months. But the issue is that they’re far beyond affordable for the average student. And that is an expectation which is almost never communicated. The utter shock of an unforgiving housing market is Eindhoven 1.0.

I honestly don’t know what else we can do as individuals to alleviate things, other than to watch out for those we know and to help some out whom we don’t. And as morbid as it may sound, I don’t see things get any better. But just as long as we’re not tenting out, like in Groningen.

Deel dit artikel