We want your voice memos
Here comes newsletter 3! It’s been a good few weeks since we checked in with you... and a LOT of reporting has happened.
A CALL FOR VOICE MEMOS AND TIPS FROM YOU
Katz would love to hear from you about:
Your tips about the housing situation in Paris, whether it’s your experience of renting in the private sector or public housing! Email us at hello@europeanspodcast.com.
We’d love to receive some voice memos on this shame around housing, either because your home is “too nice” or “not nice enough”.Is this something you recognise?
Voice memos/emails also welcome about Finland! Finland has a Housing First policy - is that something that spills over to the not homeless but very much precarious, like young people, and/or people with lower paying jobs?
Examples of tangibly positive housing policy are still very much welcome. We’re fighting hard not to make this a ‘Who Does It Worst?’!
Wojciech would love to hear from you if you’ve ever found yourself on the losing end of a bad drug policy. Were you arrested or mistreated for something minor, like smoking a joint? Do you know someone who ended up in legal trouble instead of getting help? Or have another story that might be relevant? Drop him a line at hello@europeanspodcast.com—or better yet, send him a voice note.
Alright, now onto an update.
Wojciech is steaming along with a first draft of the drugs episode, while on childcare Maja and Uršula are already on draft 2! On housing, Katz, ironically, had to take a few weeks off because of a legal battle that stirred up in her home. It turns out radio producers are people too, and it’s always tricky to navigate a production schedule with a freelance team when life happens. It reminded us of a string of articles a few years ago claiming that moving house can be as stressful, if not more stressful, than major life events like divorce, the death of a loved one, or childbirth! Wild. Is that something you recognise?
Another exciting development is that the fabulous Italian audio maker Jonathan Zenti has been so kind as to invite us to the Internazionale journalism festival in Ferrara this October, and so ‘Who Does It Best?’ will premiere there! Jonathan told Katz that accidentally becoming the protagonist of your own documentary is a real thing amongst radio people. It certainly seems to be the case for the housing episode, and not in a cheerful way. Maybe our next episode should be about something really jolly and low-risk, like the European buffalo..?
Another fun update: we have commissioned our favourite illustrator RTiiika, the creator of The Europeans’ main artwork, to create some special illustrations for this series. We’ve decided to get you guys involved and send you the first draft of the visuals when they’re ready, so that we can incorporate your feedback into our decision making. Watch this space!
HOUSING: Katz had an interview with a major character in the housing debate in the Netherlands, Cody Hochstenbach. After writing a bestseller on the housing crisis and how it has been shaped by neoliberal political choices, Cody has now written a second book on shame around housing, and how it relates to social class. He has a lot to say about how many of us develop a huge sense of shame when we find ourselves in a situation where something is is “wrong” with our home - we don’t have a permanent home, we can’t find a place without roommates, our home is deteriorating because of landlord negligence…More and more research shows how people experience this as a personal failure, even though the housing crisis is of course much bigger than our personal choices. Cody has a lot to say about how much shame is being carried by working-class people for not having access to better housing. And at the other end of the spectrum, wealthy people often feel shame bringing people home and showing them their large house. Suffice to say: it was a fascinating interview, and we’re really excited to incorporate it into the podcast.
DRUGS: What Wojciech loves most about his work is that when he vaguely explains what he's investigating, people start sharing deeply personal stories. They treat him as a vessel for their emotions, frustrations, and hopes—and he absorbs it all, channeling it into his future radio pieces. Now, with the topic of drugs, you can imagine the avalanche: tales of euphoric highs and harrowing lows, unlucky busts and miraculous escapes, overpriced cocaine cut with who-knows-what, and sketchy pills that floored people. It’s been so intense that he even toyed with launching a podcast where people would send in voice memos about their drug-related adventures, and he’d weave them into trippy audio collages. But if he did that, the actual ‘Who Does It Best?’episode on drug policy might never get made — there are only 24 hours in a day, after all.
CHILDCARE: Maja and Uršula are chasing deadlines… and their kids. The more they learn about childcare across Europe, the more complex they’re realising that it is. But one thing stands out: the idea that family work is unpaid and often goes unnoticed. What does that really mean? Well, all those hours spent cleaning up vomit and poop, preparing healthy meals, and getting kids to sleep? Yep, that’s unpaid labour. Something else that’s come up in Maja and Uršula’s reporting: much as we might instinctively celebrate policies that grant new mothers generous parental leave, these long breaks can actually hurt women’s careers, leaving them stuck at home while their professional lives stall and male colleagues get ahead.
Maja and Uršula have also been delving into the history of childcare in Europe, particularly how the huge labour shortage after World War II led to a big push to send women into the workplace — and a scramble to find ways of looking after their kids.. But a lot has changed since then. So, what does a good childcare system look like today?
We’ve also been thinking a lot about why childcare matters for everyone — including those of us who don’t have kids. Children are future taxpayers, contributors to society, the people who might invent the things that save us all, and the people who are going to look after our own generation when we’re old.
In short, kids are the future. And yet, birth rates are falling across Europe. The reasons are complicated: there’s a whole mix of changing personal beliefs, global issues like climate change, insecurity around housing and our finances, and other factors at play here. How does childcare provision come into it? That’s another of the many things we’re trying to figure out. If you’ve got thoughts on this, we’d love to hear them.
Alright, that’s enough from us! Have any questions or ideas? Please write back.
Love and radio,
Katz, Wojciech, Maja and Uršula