In a tiny fourth-floor room overlooking The Hague’s city center, a gray-haired man carefully plugged a small pipe with a ball of cocaine, lit up and drew a deep breath.
“This is real freedom,” 65-year-old William said as a billow of white smoke poured from his nostrils and wafted through his apartment at Woodstock, the only Dutch home for elderly junkies and other addicts.
The apartment block, flanked by a canal and a tram line, takes a unique approach to drug abuse by helping keep aging homeless people off the city’s streets and out of trouble with the law.
“I like it here. Here there is no police watching you,” William said as he rearranged the paraphernalia of his addiction on a small table: a pipe, a lighter, a mirror with traces of cocaine lines and an old credit card. “I can do what I want to do.”
HARD-LUCK STORIES
His hard-luck story is similar to that of the 32 other “older” drug and alcohol-dependent residents, including three women, who live at Woodstock, a drab brown apartment block a stone’s throw from the city center.
After 33 years of hard living in Spain, where he picked up a cocaine habit while working in hospitality, William returned to the Netherlands two years ago, hoping to rebuild contact with his estranged family.
However, instead of enjoying a reunion, he was viciously attacked by two youths at a local homeless shelter, receiving a beating that cost him his left eye and which left part of his face paralyzed.
His other wounds healed, but William was still out on the street.
He eventually ended up at Woodstock’s doors and has been living there ever since.
Named after hippiedom’s most famous festival, Woodstock opened in December 2008 as a combined project between The Hague’s municipality and the local health provider Parnassia.
“We identified a great need in the city to help ‘older’ drug addicts, aged between 45 to as old as 70, who were homeless,” said Nils Hollenborg, the home’s manager and resident psychiatrist.
However, he stressed: “We are not here to try and rehabilitate our residents.”
“In fact, our criteria state you can only get into Woodstock if you’re over 45 and after a medical examination declares you are beyond rehabilitation,” Hollenborg said.
“What we do here is give people a roof over their heads, a stable home and something to eat for free — and we tolerate limited use of hard drugs,” he said.
METHADONE
Many of Woodstock’s residents also take prescription methadone, the synthetic drug used in programs around the world to treat opiate addiction, which like accommodation and food, is handed out for free.
However, alcohol and illegal drugs, such as cocaine and heroin — or cannabis, of which small amounts are officially tolerated by the Dutch government — have to be bought outside and off the street.
“Our approach to drug abuse, targeting this particular group of people, makes us unique in the Netherlands,” Hollenborg said.
The Woodstock home for aging addicts in many ways resembles other frail-care facilities in the Netherlands, although it has some special touches.
At the entrance hall, the occasional visitor is greeted by a life-sized statue of screen legend Humphrey Bogart standing guard.
Behind the reception desk, pop art prints of another Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe, smile down on a hall equipped with a pool table, a jukebox and a cage that houses exotic parrots.
Only a whiteboard in the locked staff room with residents’ names and their daily doses of prescribed methadone hints at the home’s special purpose.
FUNDING
Funding came mainly through a Dutch insurance law providing for special healthcare needs, Hollenborg said.
Since its inception, the project has been part of the city’s success in bringing down petty crime figures in the center, said Sjoerd Steenbergen, spokesman for the council’s health services representative.
“A few years ago elderly drug addicts accounted for 9 percent of petty crime. It’s dropped down to 5,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number