i am writing this from the "day center" in Rotterdam. Were this building not here most of the
two dozen current inhabitants and the hundred or so people who pass thru here in the course
of the week would be living on the street. While it is not possible to spend the night here
(there are several other places for this in town) just about everything else needed to make it
by as a person living with nearly nothing is here. Free showers, a place to lay down for the 7
hours they are open everyday, quite cheap food (by western standards anyway, breakfast for
30 Kcs) an inexpesnive laundry service and even free coffee for a couple hours in the
morning. The free computer i am working is more powerful and better equiped than anything
in the DUHA offices.

This is the "Other Europe". The social welfare state which those who wish to globalize the
continent dispise as economically inefficient - since these people produce nothing, they
deserve nothing. Yet from a purely self serving perspective, this arguement fails to hold up.
The tolerant Netherlands enjoys one of the lowest crime rates in the industrial world.
Sociological surveys find that concerns for personal safety rank very low here, especially if
compared to more laisse faire (sp?) states like the US. Places like the day center remove
the desperation from the people who fall thru the robust Dutch social welfare net.

Currently, i live in a squat while we wait for our boat back to the US. i will admit that it is a bit
the high end of squats even by Dutch standards. We have running water, electricity which is
stolen from the grid (use basically just to play the tape deck, we use candles for light) and a
very nice wood stove which keeps us warm with the waste wood we rescue from the street.
We cook on a gas stove which runs from canister we get refilled every few months (if we
stayed that long). Best of all i have stumbled into a wonderful international community: two
young Portugese guys, two Brits, my Dutch lover, Hawina and one Yankee (me).

There are numerous squats in Rotterdam and throughout the country. The Dutch legal
system finds the rights of owners who ignore their property or leave it vacant in hopes of
speculating on increases in value less signifcant that the needs of people who dont have
housing. If a space ahs been vacant for a year and you move in, the own has to demonstrate
to the court that they have approved plans and funds to change the situation to reclaim "their"
property. Our building has been empty for 6 years. In Amsterdam alone it is estimated that
there are 50,000 vacant living places - far more places tha then number of people seeking
residences.

More importantly, virtually anyone who wants work in the country can get it, through an
elaborate state funded placement service. The Dutch who can not or do not want to work will
be funded by the state for an extended period (often years), so they never need to come to
this day center. Most of the pressure to leave the social welfare net comes from socialization
rather than from the state and due to it (in part), the Netherlands enjoys an unemployent rate
well below the EU average.

Since the revolution, the Czech government has generally rejected this model, perfering the
"winner take all" model. In the US this has resulted in over 15 million people homeless and
over 1 million in prison [if this fraction were applied to the Czech Republic it would be
equivalent to destroying all the housing in Brno and imprisoning all of Cheb [Jakub - i am
assuming Cheb has about 50K people, if not choose another city]].

As the Czech Republic and the other former socialist states of eastern Europe consider
joining the European Union, these fundamental questions of what kind of Europe they are
joining (or helping to create) should be advanced. There are certainly problems with the
hyper-civilized Dutch, or decentralized/federated Swiss governmental methods. These rich
countries have nothing like sustainable economies. But they like the Czech Republic are
under attack to further disassemble the parts of their culture which do work shifting power to
corporate states of a WTO guided "free trade" world. Hopefully, the Czechs will be more
concerned with real social fairness, instead of illusory corporate freedom.