Elderly junkies find 'real freedom' at Dutch home

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," said 65-year-old William 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 to 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."

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.

But 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 45 to as old as 70, who were homeless," said Nils Hollenborg, the home's manager and resident psychiatrist.

But 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."