NL: USER ROOM CLOSED DUE TO GREAT SUCCES

UTRECHT – Two addicts are sleeping in user room ‘De Stek’. They ‘re sleeping with their heads on the table, partly concealed under blankets and coats. ‘I can’t imagine that I used to put up with such hard bunking. ‘Sleeping zombies’ we call them,’ says Leo Selhorst (39).

Five years ago Selhorst was the first addict that entered the user room near the central station of Utrecht. The facility was also a care centre which provided medical care to addicts and others. ‘Actually the first visitor was a dealer from the Antilles, but he was shown the door immediately.’

Yesterday this user room was closed. ‘Due to great succes’, says alderman for welfare, Van Eijk. As there were about 250 access cards issued for 3 user rooms in 2002, only 80 access cards are actively used today. These remaining 80 users can turn to the last big user room that’s left in Utrecht. Most addicts in Utrecht are adequately housed in the meantime.

Back then the supply corridor under the shopping centre ‘Hoog Catharijne’ was notorious: a stinking, dark cavern where addicts threatened each others lives. Residents and shop keepers kept complaining about this so called ‘junkytunnel’. It is has been closed now, and is now part of the Mediamarkt.

Leo Selhorst had been hanging around at ‘Hoog Catharijne’ since he was fourteen. ‘He used to sleep wherever possible,’ says his friend Menno. ‘That tunnel really was hell.’

Now Leo and Menno live in the hostel ‘Wittevrouwen’. These hostels are special housings for addicts. Since 2001 7 hostels were opened in different city quarters. In februari 2008 the 8th hostel is opening, followed by the 9th and last hostel in ‘Leidsche Rijn’ in 2009.

Since they have a roof over their heads, Leo and Menno aren’t to be seen around ‘Hoog Catharijne’ too often. ‘Why should we hang around in the city, when we got a nice warm room?’, says Leo. ‘You can get fined in the city,’ adds Menno.

Leo’s nickname used to be ‘Speedy Spijker’ (nail, for being thin), nowadays he’s got a potbelly. ‘I definitely am expanding. But in the hostels I see the heads of the addicts growing bigger. You don’t use as much when you have a room. It bolsters regularity and you can keep busy.’

Leo was a burglar and he specialized in car stereos. Today the two of them clean the hostel and do chores. They paint the rooms for new arrivals. ‘He still looks when he sees a nice car radio, but now the radio stays in the car’, says Menno.

Utrecht is ahead of the pack of large cities involved in addiction care, says Van Eijk. Opening the hostels has been a strenuous process. Many neighbourhoods weren’t at all keen to welcome resident addicts. But once the hostels were operative, very few complaints of neighbours were recorded.

‘We witnessed how addicts recovered fast in the hostels’, says assistant Annet den Akker of GG & GD (health service). ‘Our triumphant moment was the day that the addicts started getting bored of watching Animal Planet all day long.’

The closed user room will now provide extra space to Dagloon, a working agency for the (ex)-homeless. There will be more activities to get addicts to work, says Van den Akker. But the last two visitors of ‘De Stek’, with their blankets pulled over their heads, don’t want to go yet. ‘It’s a pity that this place is closed.’