2023-06-06 20:29:49
Poverty has been the trump card in the Drentse and Groningen Veenkoloniën for decades. The problem is only getting worse, according to research. ‘You see people doubting in the supermarket. Do I buy this or not?’
If you drive via the ‘Hunebed Highway’ (N34) from Emmen to Groningen, you will come across signs on the roadside saying ‘keep your eyes on the road’. Like depth, vastness exerts a certain attraction. And that is clearly noticeable on this provincial road, flanked by the former peat soils, now agricultural area.
In Borger, a village on the same N34, Annamaria Evers answers the door while restraining a barking Romanian street dog. “The animal was a pile of misery when I caught it, traumatized too. So she suits me perfectly.” After the barking, a lot of friendly sniffing follows.
Evers (56) opens up about the poverty in which she grew up, and all the misery associated with it. She is one of the 21,000 people in the Veenkoloniën who live in poverty. These figures recently surfaced in a study by the University of Groningen. Despite the aid programs, the poverty problem has only gotten worse in the past decade: between 2011 and 2020, the number of young adults growing up in poverty increased by 10 percent.
Bailiffs
Evers wonders to this day what her stepfather actually did. “He had an obscure car business. My mother had a widow’s pension and a hole in her hand, in the first week of the month there was money, then no more. We had a lot of debt at the time. Sometimes mysterious men appeared at the door, from whom we had to hide as children. Later I realized that they were bailiffs.”
The Groningen study shows that poverty in the Veenkoloniën increasingly extends over several generations. Evers’ grandparents also did not have it wide. They were skippers, with seven children, of whom the eldest raised the youngest. Evers is now struggling with debts himself.
‘The outside world doesn’t like me’
To gain more insight into the inheritance of poverty, the scientists have mapped the living environment of 23 families over the past five years. They discovered different family patterns that perpetuate poverty.
“Parents do not always believe that their situation will ever improve and they do not encourage their children to do better at school, for example,” says researcher Sander van Lanen. “’I didn’t succeed’, they tell their child, ‘so why should you succeed? You’re better off going to work, with Uncle Karel in the construction industry’.”
The conversations also show that many families are homebound and feel a deep bond with the region. For many, it is a big step to study in Groningen or to take a job in Overijssel. Van Lanen: “Some families have a small network and only rely on family members. They feel that ‘the outside world doesn’t like them’.”
Invisible child
Another pattern stems from the instability of these families. “Because of all the stress, parents pay less attention to their children,” says Van Lanen. “Some have never learned to deal with emotions. And then it can happen that children express their frustrations in fights or that someone quickly goes out of their way at work and ends up on the street.”
Even in Evers’ family, with an older brother and a younger half-sister, no attention was paid to the children. School results didn’t matter, Evers was called stupid, a ‘donkey’s head’. Aggression was the order of the day. “The blows came out of nowhere. I kept my cool, was an invisible child. On holidays, when my stepfather started drinking early, he would beat everything up. Yes, literally.”
Not only the lack of money, but also the aggression turned out to be hereditary. “The three fathers of my three children were all violent. When I left my last partner six years ago, I became homeless along with two of my children. We slept with different girlfriends and on campsites. Then I incurred the most debts.”
Twenty emergency workers on the floor
There has been no lack of aid programs to reduce poverty, but according to the Groningen researchers they have had little effect. This is because the assistance mainly focused on individuals rather than families, says Van Lanen. And yes, hereditary poverty usually starts with a father or mother who is in need of money after illness, divorce or dismissal. “But behind that one request for help, there are often problems that affect the whole family. Lack of money is not always the most urgent problem.”
The focus must therefore be on families. But also watch out for another pitfall, says Dirk Strijker, emeritus professor of rural development: too many aid workers. “If you don’t have a job, are in poor health and have an aggression problem, you can just get twenty social workers on the floor. Including authorities that are concerned about the children, that wonder whether you are entitled to benefits, you name it.”
That doesn’t work, says Strijker. “All these authorities must mutually agree which care provider they will send to such a family. Preferably one with an extensive mandate. Compare it with Buurtzorg, a healthcare institution with employees who provide specialized care, but also put patients in the shower and help put on compression stockings.”
Experts by experience as intermediaries
There is no single solution to the poverty problem, says Eric van Oosterhout, mayor of Emmen and chairman of the Alliantie van Kracht. This is a partnership of 42 municipalities, knowledge and care institutions, housing corporations and welfare organizations that wants to put an end to the hereditary poverty in the Veenkoloniën.
“A lot of government policy is ready-made: it assumes one size fits all, while customization is required here. Also because poverty is usually accompanied by psychological and physical problems and relationship problems. To get a clear picture of all this, as a care provider you have to spend a long time with a family. Only then will you see what can help this family.”
According to Van Oosterhout, it is also important that more use is made of experts by experience. “They have personally experienced what poverty does to you, and they can act as an excellent intermediary between family and authorities. They can also help to map out a path in the jungle of rules.”
In these difficult times, ‘new arms’ are also being added, says Evers. “If you have an eye for it, you will see it. Then you see people doubting in the supermarket. Do I buy it or not?”
‘I have proven that I am not an ass’
Evers is doing much better now. She has completed a two-year training as an experiential expert, now teaches herself and is affiliated with Sterk uit Poverty, an expertise center for experiential experts. She works for the municipality of Coevorden, among others. “I try to get people who are in the back of the card catalog at the municipality, who do not keep to agreements, to move.”
Evers is proud of what she has achieved. “I have proven that I am not an asshole. As a child I didn’t exist, now I do. Now I am visible.”
Poorest region of the Netherlands
The malaise in the Veenkoloniën, an area stretching from the southeast of Groningen to the east of Drenthe, started before the Second World War. The peat soils, from which peat had been extracted for centuries, became exhausted. In addition, the Dutch economy switched to oil and gas, causing unemployment in the peat areas to skyrocket.
The region has never recovered from that blow, comparable to the textile industry that left Twente and the closure of the mines in South Limburg. The population − 450,000 people − is predominantly low-skilled and homeless.
“Many companies are still ignoring the Veenkoloniën and promising young people are moving away,” says Sanne Visser, previously involved as a researcher in the Groningen study. “It never works out here, you often hear.”
A lot of prejudices are brewing not only in the business community, but also in government and welfare institutions, says Visser, who comes from Groningen himself. “Many peat settlers have the impression that they are part of the so-called ‘granite stock’. In other words: that they are known to municipalities and institutions as those who will never get out of social assistance and assistance and with whom nothing can be done.”
The fact is that the Veenkoloniën dangle in the lower regions in economic and medical statistics. Overweight and chronic diseases are relatively common, and life expectancy is the lowest in the entire country: people die an average of seven years earlier. Disposable income is also low. In fact, the Veenkoloniën are known as the poorest region of the country. Poverty that turns out to be ‘hereditary’ and extends over three or four generations.
“You also see it when you are in the area,” says emeritus professor of rural development Dirk Strijker, who lives in Drenthe himself. “When you drive through the ribbon development, you see how small the houses are and how close they are to each other. Or go to the market in Stadskanaal on Saturday afternoon. Then you can see it at a glance: many overweight people, mobility scooters and shops with products of 1 euro.”
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