The Tongelre-based vagrant from Latvia, Uldis Kruga, is currently staying in the Novotel Eindhoven, on the edge of town. The municipality says it is working on a structural solution for the homeless man without legs.
Uldis Kruga has a small radio in his hotel room, which he uses to softly play rock music. On his bed there is an enormous suitcase with clothes, from the handle hangs a label with his name on it. It is the fourth hotel where he has stayed since the municipality decided to admit him back into care. He was out on the streets again in April after his legs got amputated in February this year.
Smell
“That was bad, at one point he started smelling so much that people made a diversion when they saw him”, his caretaker, Riekie van den Broek, says. “That is not acceptable, I said to my husband. You can’t treat people like that. I made a connection with the shower under a roof in the garden so that he could freshen up a bit. Then I gave him food and approached the municipality. Finally I got a call that he could go back to the shelter”.
Since then, he has been shuttling from hotel to hotel. According to the municipality, the Latvian is not entitled to care and is holding on to a place to which someone else is entitled. What Uldis really needs is an adapted house. But that just won’t happen. Riekie suspects that the municipality wants to send the Latvian vagrant back to his homeland.
Uldis cannot believe that this is a real possibility. That is why he remains confident of a happy ending. “There is only one country where I want to live, and that is the Netherlands. In Latvia, I don’t know anyone and I don’t know where to go”.
The municipality informs that Uldis will stay at the Novotel as long as work is being done to find a ‘structural solution in Eindhoven’.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
