Greeks suffer as more lose job and home
Source: Agencies |
December 1, 2011, Thursday
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UNTIL about 18 months ago, Dimitri had a home, a job and a regular life. He had passed homeless people on the street, rarely giving them a second thought. He never imagined he could become one.
That was before Greece was gripped by a vicious financial crisis that has left the country on the brink of bankruptcy. Now the place he calls home is beneath a highway overpass, his bed a blanket laid beneath a battered old desk. His pillow is part of a discarded crate.
Since the debt crisis erupted in 2009, tens of thousands of Greeks have lost their jobs or businesses. The unemployment rate reached a record 18.4 percent in August, a time when the peak tourist season usually results in a dip in jobless figures.
The number of those sleeping rough has shot up by about a quarter over the past two years to reach an estimated 20,000, according to Athanasia Tourkou of Klimaka, a charity caring for homeless and mentally ill people.
"Before it was only the mentally ill or former prisoners," said 49-year-old Dimitri, who used to work for a Greek folk-dancing troupe. "Now it is totally different. Now there are families on the streets."
Divorced with a 19-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, the former dancer is too ashamed to tell his ex-wife and children what has happened.
He leaves his makeshift bed before dawn each day. "I don't want people to see me sleeping on the street," he said. "I walk endlessly. It is exhausting, psychologically as well as physically."
Facing a runaway national debt and a huge budget deficit, Greece has relied since May last year on billions of euros in international rescue loans to make ends meet. In return, the government has imposed harsh spending cuts, slashing pensions and salaries and pushing through several rounds of tax rises on everything from food and fuel to income and property.
Greece's economy is projected to contract by 5.5 percent this year, and it faces a fourth year of recession in 2012. General government debt is to reach 161 percent of gross domestic product in 2011, or 352 billion euros (US$470 billion).
Thousands of the Greek capital's poorest now rely on food handouts, some organized by the church, some by the municipality and others by charities.
The main municipal soup kitchen is run from a building on Sofokleous, a street once synonymous with the Athens Stock Exchange before the bourse relocated in 2007.
It feeds between 2,500 and 3,000 people a day - not just the homeless but also those so poor they have no other way of securing regular family meals.
That was before Greece was gripped by a vicious financial crisis that has left the country on the brink of bankruptcy. Now the place he calls home is beneath a highway overpass, his bed a blanket laid beneath a battered old desk. His pillow is part of a discarded crate.
Since the debt crisis erupted in 2009, tens of thousands of Greeks have lost their jobs or businesses. The unemployment rate reached a record 18.4 percent in August, a time when the peak tourist season usually results in a dip in jobless figures.
The number of those sleeping rough has shot up by about a quarter over the past two years to reach an estimated 20,000, according to Athanasia Tourkou of Klimaka, a charity caring for homeless and mentally ill people.
"Before it was only the mentally ill or former prisoners," said 49-year-old Dimitri, who used to work for a Greek folk-dancing troupe. "Now it is totally different. Now there are families on the streets."
Divorced with a 19-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, the former dancer is too ashamed to tell his ex-wife and children what has happened.
He leaves his makeshift bed before dawn each day. "I don't want people to see me sleeping on the street," he said. "I walk endlessly. It is exhausting, psychologically as well as physically."
Facing a runaway national debt and a huge budget deficit, Greece has relied since May last year on billions of euros in international rescue loans to make ends meet. In return, the government has imposed harsh spending cuts, slashing pensions and salaries and pushing through several rounds of tax rises on everything from food and fuel to income and property.
Greece's economy is projected to contract by 5.5 percent this year, and it faces a fourth year of recession in 2012. General government debt is to reach 161 percent of gross domestic product in 2011, or 352 billion euros (US$470 billion).
Thousands of the Greek capital's poorest now rely on food handouts, some organized by the church, some by the municipality and others by charities.
The main municipal soup kitchen is run from a building on Sofokleous, a street once synonymous with the Athens Stock Exchange before the bourse relocated in 2007.
It feeds between 2,500 and 3,000 people a day - not just the homeless but also those so poor they have no other way of securing regular family meals.
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