Ask HN: Assistance with Rebuilding Life in Amsterdam
I am 42 years old, born in Sweden, and have been writing software since I got my C64 for Christmas at the age of 8. I spent 13 years working professionally in companies of all kinds and sizes in several countries.
Four years ago I met a woman with whom I decided to start a family. We ended up in a tiny village in Northern Germany next to her family, with VERY limited options for work. As a result, we lived mostly on welfare and I focused on designing the programming language I always wanted [0] [1] [2]. I setup a Liberapay account [3], but never received any donations. Then disaster struck; and my partner's family decided that since I still wasn't supporting the family, I needed to leave pronto.
So I ended up on the street with everything I owned in a bag and around €250; and no passport since I didn't need one when I got there and spending €150 on welfare wasn't an option. So got a temporary passport and headed South to Riace/Italy; where I was hoping to be able to arrange a simple life and get time to process.
I've now spent two months in Riace, and come to the conclusion that there is no future for me here. The first month I was able to find work harvesting olives, which paid €20 per day. And for the last month, I've been living with a family of African immigrants who kindly offered me a bed and food for free once they learned of my situation.
I have received enough donations on my Gofundme campaign [4] to renew the passport and make the trip back, but could really use a buffer. My plan is to aim for Amsterdam, which always felt like home and offers plenty of opportunities. Any help with finding software work there would be most appreciated, as would recommendations for a cheap place to stay.
Thank you!
[0] https://github.com/codr7/g-fu [1] https://github.com/codr7/forthy2 [2] https://github.com/codr7/cidk [3] https://liberapay.com/codr7/donate [4] https://www.gofundme.com/f/analogistics