Ten years ago there were hundreds of homeless people living rough in Utrecht’s main shopping centre. Now, thanks to an initiative by a group of the city’s main agencies, a handful of them are giving guided tours of their former haunts.

Utrecht Underground aims to teach visitors about this dark chapter in the city’s history and show how much work has been done to improve people’s lives. Former homeless people – many of whom were addicted to drugs or alcohol – are offering trips through the city where they tell their life stories.

Leon lived on the streets for eight years before being given a place in a hostel and in the future he hopes to be given his own flat in Utrecht. He used to bed down in front of air vents on cardboard boxes and lived in constant fear of being mugged or arrested. One of the places on the tour is a huge loading bay underneath the Hoog Catherijne shopping complex. In the 70s, when the centre was first built, up to 100 people slept and took drugs there every night. But it was never a safe option, says Leon.

“Really bad things happened here and the police knew about it but most of the time they didn’t do anything about it.

“It was covered with cardboard, people doing drugs, selling drugs, dealers coming and going. It was like a free crime zone or something.”

Utrecht Underground took several years to plan and follows the establishment of several hostels in the city for homeless people and addicts. It is being led by Altrecht, which provides help to people with psychological problems. Similar efforts have been made in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where the government recently announced its intention to rehouse all of its homeless people by the end of the year.

And it is a model that has clearly been successful. Project manager Annemieke Dijk says everyone who wants one now has a bed for the night.

“In Utrecht there is nobody who has to sleep on the street again, and it’s important the situation never comes back. We should remember that. Utrecht should be very proud of this, it’s a unique situation in the world that so many organisations - police, health organisations, politicians and shop owners – everybody worked together to get people off the streets.”

The tours will initially be given daily by five different guides, but the idea is for the scheme to grow.  For Leon, this is an opportunity to fill a few more hours in his day but he also hopes to show people how difficult life was on the streets and hopefully prevent others from getting into the same trouble he did

“My life has changed a lot. It’s not the whole day doing drugs… I try to keep myself busy, that’s the reason why I do these tours. .. It’s a thing to do.

“I hope that people can learn about how things were and how they are now. Maybe I can keep some people off the drugs this way.”

Listen to a piece about Utrecht Underground