The chic Schimmelpenninck Huys on the Oosterstraat has three stars
The Schimmelpenninck Huys hotel in Groningen has announced on its Facebook page that is will offer its rooms to the city’s homeless population during the current Coronavirus outbreak.
“At a time when it is recommended to stay at home, we are offering the homeless in Groningen a temporary Huys. A safe place, a private room, a good meal and the possibility to keep a meter and a half away from others”, the hotel says.
The hotel will therefore temporarily close its doors for business guests and tourists, reports the Groninger Internet Courant.
The hotel has also tried to do its bit recently, by keeping its doors open for overnight stays: relatives of sick people staying at the UMCG could go there, as well as staff working in full-time services.
The initiative in the Schimmelpenninck Huys is the result of a collaboration with the shelter for the homeless in Groningen, Het Kopland in the Schoolstraat. This will then now be temporarily closed, as it sometimes slept three or four people in one room and is therefore unsuited to social distancing.
About fifty homeless people can now go to the Schimmelpenninck Huys. In principle, the hotel will be available to the homeless for three months, until the end of June, manager Sanne Luijten said to RTV Noord.
“Everyone will get a good breakfast, for lunch we have soups, or maybe a ‘broodje kroket’. And for dinners we will make sure to serve nutritional food, the first time perhaps Nasi, another time maybe meat, potato, and vegetables. It has to be a bit varied”, she added.
The rooms and suites will be made a little more sober than their current style: “the TV’s and books will stay, but the minibar will be empty”, said Luijten.
Image via Wikimedia user Effeietsanders. License here.
