The two foreign students Adèle and Noam slept in a tent in the backyard of a house for a month. After many bad nights and an appeal on multiple media channels, they received many messages offering places to sleep. Fortunately, just before the period of cold nights, they found themselves an anti-squat house.
With a little effort, Noam opened the door of the house. “Welcome to our new house. We are very happy with it. Finally sleeping in a good bed again with a roof over our head. I notice that I have much more energy again and that is very nice, especially at school.”
For a few days now, Adèle from France and Noam from the US have been living in their new home. The students have received many items from friends, family, and also from strangers who had heard their story, they told Omroep Brabant. “It’s still a bit of a mess. We haven’t had time to give it all a place yet, but we are extremely happy with it.”
Little sleep
Adèle often thinks back to the nights in the tent and realises only too well how nice it is that Noam and she now have a roof over their heads. “We didn’t sleep much there. The tent was broken and there was a lot of wind coming in. Now that we are in this house, we realise again how nice this is.”
“If buildings like this are not taken down, students will not have to sleep in a tent, or on a bench in the park”
Students Noam and Adèle
The living room has two sofas, a cupboard and a table made out of a door. They have grand plans to turn it into a nice house, but doubt they will carry them out. After all, their lease could be terminated at any time, Noam says. “It’s an anti-squatting house, so we don’t know how long we can stay. It could be a year and a half, or it could be a month.”
Demolition site
According to the zoning plan, a new police station should rise on this site. However, the ladies find this odd at a time of housing shortages. “It would be a real shame if this is demolished. Especially for us students, this is a great place. If buildings like this are not knocked down, students won’t have to sleep in a tent, or on a bench in the park.”
Whatever happens, at least the students don’t want to go back to their tents. Which, by the way, is still in the same place. “Due to the chaos of the move, it hasn’t been cleared yet. I think this weekend we will just have a nice ceremony at the tent and clean it up. Hoping we’ll never need it again.”
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Simge Taşdemir
