Having no bed. What must that be like? I often think about that when I cycle through the city at night. I see empty buildings and offices. Why don't people sleep there? A matter of thinking around.
Amsterdam has over seventeen thousand homeless people. They certainly don't all sleep on the streets; they sleep with friends on the couch, in emergency shelters and, since 2022, also in offices. We are setting a good example ourselves: people also sleep at night at Regenboog locations.
Thanks to our housing project Onder de Pannen, it is also possible to rent a room from a fellow city dweller, without cutting benefits or allowances. A bold plan ten years ago, now rolled out nationwide. Used to thinking out of the box, we launched more daring projects over the past 50 years. So bold, in fact, that it was even noticed by the New York Times and CNN. Like the syringe exchange in 1984, which saved lives.
What is Amsterdam without the Regenboog, I sometimes hear people say. I prefer to turn it around. For as long as we have existed, the Regenboog has been able to count on Amsterdam residents. Without the efforts of all these volunteers, we certainly wouldn't have been able to house hundreds of homeless people in a sports hall in two days during the corona pandemic. Nor would we have been able to accommodate eighteen hundred Ukrainians on an ad hoc basis. Every day more than a thousand volunteers go out for us to help a fellow townsman. Without them, there would have been much more loneliness, much more stagnation and dejection.
"What is Amsterdam without the Regenboog, I sometimes hear people say. I prefer to turn it around. For as long as we've existed, the Regenboog has been able to count on Amsterdammers."
"Helping where there is no helper," were the words of Douwe Wouters at the founding of The Regenboog in 1975. They remind me of Fazal's words. Originally from Afghanistan, he is now one of our volunteers, helping status holders. "We live in an I society," says Fazal. "The fine print of De Regenboog Groep says: we."
Yes, that's what I think about as I bike through town at night. And in this I am not alone. "Right now, too many people are left out and there is too much poverty, loneliness and homelessness. It is precisely for those people that De Regenboog Groep is so important and I sincerely hope that you will continue to work for this for the next fifty years." These are the words of Mayor Femke Halsema. I propose that we cycle up together. Look around for each other. We have done it for fifty years by all means and with full conviction. Let's keep doing it. Together.
Hans Wijnands, director of De Regenboog Groep
Ruth Leysner, Hans Wijnands, Job Cohen en een bezoeker in Blaka Watra (2002)
Hans Wijnands on De Regenboog Groep