STUDY ON ADEQUATE URBAN HOUSING FOR REFUGEES

and Georgians. Unlike the "population exchange", these arrivals were not accompanied or
supervised by a national or a local plan, with the exception of some housing assistance programs
(loans, access to land) for populations of Greek origin from the former Soviet Union (Neapoli
neighborhood and Stavroupoli in Thessaloniki). The migrants’ integration into the city and into
society was facilitated by the strong need for cheap labor: without creating ghettos, they settled
throughout the city, but in lower quality and smaller housing units than those occupied by the
Greeks
1.
Since 2016, the stay of 15,000 refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region
of Thessaloniki could be perceived as a continuity of the historical dynamics that have shaped the
identity of the city. However, the acute economic crisis that has been affecting the country since
2009, accompanied by the rise of xenophobic political parties and the weak European response to
the refugee crisis, mean that the region is finding it extremely challenging to host this population.
2. A crisis on top of a crisis: impoverished Greeks and the
real estate crisis
2.1. A weakened and impoverished society
The Greek government-debt crisis that started in late 2009, followed by a succession of austerity
measures imposed on Greece by the Troika
2, has had severe repercussions for the population,
resulting in large-scale impoverishment.
Housing and tenure
The Greeks were partially protected from the effects of the economic crisis due to the high property
ownership rate (75%, the second highest in Europe after Spain), including among the poorest
segments of the population. Moreover, a large part of these property owners (62%) have no
outstanding loans. This form of protection was reinforced by a temporary measure taken at the
beginning of the crisis that prohibited the seizure of people’s primary residence. However, this
measure expired in 2013 and Troika has demanded that it not be renewed. As its renewal was one
of Syriza’s campaign promises, it is presently the subject of intense political debate in the country.
Since 2013, there have been no published national statistics on the number of housing
foreclosures or evictions. Yet, since the beginning of the crisis, Greek organizations, especially the
NGO Klimaka, have been highlighting the emergence of "neo-homelessness"
3
phenomena, which
have particularly affected people with medium to high levels of education, leaving them brutally
impoverished in just a few years (the only public program targeting the homeless covers only 1,100
people in the country, while the number of homeless people is estimated to be 20,000).
1
I. Kokkali, “Spatial proximity and social distance: Albanian immigration in Thessaloniki, Greece”, 2007.
2
European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund
3
O. Theodorikakou, A. Alamanou, K. Katsadoros, “’Neo-homelessness’ and the Greek Crisis”, European Journal of
Homelessness, Volume 7, No. 2, December 2013, pp. 203-210.
NRC > Study on Adequate Urban Housing for Refugees in Thessaloniki !29