Hidden Homelessness: People on the move faced with Athens’ harsh reality

Walking on the streets of Athens from Victoria Square towards Ameriki’s Square, the signs of transformation become evident. The once homogeneously Greek neighbourhoods have given way to a mosaic of languages, cultures, and faces.  Shops owned by people from across the world and NGO spaces for people on the move paint the picture of the area’s evolving demographic landscape. Amidst this change, homelessness emerges as a growing and complex phenomenon.

Amerikis Square (Plateia Amerikis), Athens

Homelessness started becoming more widespread across Greece after 2010, when the effects of the economic crisis started showing. Since then, it has steadily expanded across urban centres, evolving into an urgent social issue.

Remarkably, the last time the government gathered data on homelessness was back in 2018 through a pilot project - a fact that points to the lack of prioritisation in the political agenda. The project identified approximately 800 individuals experiencing homelessness in Athens, the country's capital, either sleeping rough on the streets or residing in shelters and supportive housing. However, these figures are widely considered to underestimate the problem, especially as they fail to capture the full complexity of the phenomenon. 

In stark contrast, the 7th Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe issued by the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) in 2022, presented drastically higher estimates for the province of Attica, which includes Athens. According to FEANTSA, 17,000 people were sleeping rough, while the total number of homeless individuals was projected to be approximately 500,000—over 600 times higher than the 2018 government figures.

Hidden Homelessness

To understand the stark difference in these numbers, it is crucial to examine some of the underlying factors contributing to the disparity in how homelessness is measured and perceived. The Greek government’s figures fail to capture a large portion of people who find themselves in a less visible form of the phenomenon. That of hidden homelessness. Hidden homelessness refers to individuals living in inadequate and insecure housing, unable to afford rent or utilities. Its invisibility on the streets makes this form of poverty especially dangerous, keeping it outside public awareness and absent from political discourse.

For people on the move, reaching Athens, hidden homelessness is an increasingly pressing reality that conceals itself behind the doors of overcrowded and deteriorating apartments. Two- or three-bedroom spaces, designed for small families, house more than 20 individuals with different legal statuses. Despite the particularly poor condition of these accommodations, residents pay around €100 a month for a mattress on the floor and a chance to remain under the state’s radar. These spaces are typically arranged through community networks, with people who have been in Greece longer renting them out to newcomers for profit.

The community also serves as the main channel through which people find – frequently exploitative – jobs. When rent becomes unaffordable, the risks for residents of these apartments intensify. They become increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, working exhausting hours in the black market meagre wages, or even resorting to survival sex. For many, housing insecurity creates a foundation for broader vulnerabilities, leaving them exposed to abuse, trafficking, addiction, and criminality.

But how do people on the move find themselves exposed to the dangers of hidden homelessness?

Rising Costs and Government Policies Driving People on the Move into Homelessness

Greece stands out in the EU as the country where, for the past decade, households have spent the largest share of their income on housing costs, a burden unmatched in the Union. As of the third trimester of 2024, rents across Greece continued to rise, nearing for the first time the historically high levels of 2008 -when the financial crisis hit.

Rising housing costs, combined with a series of overlapping economic, social, and energy crises, have pushed many into precarious conditions, as wages have increased only marginally. Short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and real estate investment programmes such as the Golden Visa have worsened the situation, driving demand and prices even higher.

Under Greece’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan ‘Greece 2.0’, endorsed by the European Commission in 2021, initiatives were proposed to provide "housing support to the most vulnerable groups threatened by or facing homelessness”. However, despite the EU disbursing half the allocated funds following the completion of milestones, tangible results remain absent. Rather than offering meaningful support, policies appear to disproportionately target the most vulnerable—particularly people on the move.

Over the past three years, government decisions have systematically terminated all housing programmes for asylum seekers and refugees. This strategy stands in direct contradiction to the EU’s priorities, as outlined in the European Commission’s Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021-2027. While the EU promotes non-segregated, adequate, and affordable housing, along with autonomous solutions for people with a migrant background, including asylum seekers, the Greek government has instead chosen to eliminate housing support. Through its policies, it aims to remove people on the move from public view and awareness, forcing them into poverty and disregarding their fundamental rights.

The Closure of All Housing Programmes for Asylum Seekers

The first housing programme to be terminated by the Greek government was Filoxenia which, run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), provided temporary accommodation for vulnerable asylum seekers and migrants. It was closed in 2021 following a government decision. A year later, the EU-funded ESTIA programme faced the same fate. Originally managed by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), ESTIA was transferred to the Greek Government in 2020/2021 with the stated goal of increasing its capacity. The programme provided private apartments and support services to vulnerable asylum seekers, while promoting their inclusion in local communities during the asylum procedure. However, instead of expanding the programme, the government shut it down in 2022, citing "improved migration management" and claiming it would ease the burden of the 'migration crisis' on local communities. Existing camps, they argued, were sufficient to meet asylum seekers' housing needs.

As a result, asylum seekers were evicted from the programme-supported accommodations and were relocated to remote state-run camps, with little consideration for the impact on their lives and mental health. These camps, situated far from urban centres, essential services, and opportunities for integration, isolate residents both physically and emotionally. Surrounded by barbed wire (e.g., Malakasa) or concrete walls (e.g., Ritsona, Polykastro), they closely resemble detention centres, offering no connection to local communities, no access to the market, nor to essential services, such as legal support.

Faced with these detention-like conditions, along with long waiting times for asylum interviews -sometimes taking over a year to be scheduled- and repeated disruptions of the cash assistance by the state, many asylum seekers take the risk of leaving the camps before their cases are fully processed, driven by the urgent need to access services and secure income. This struggle is shared by unaccompanied minors, who often leave smaller Greek towns, where opportunities for work are scarce, in hopes of finding employment to support themselves or send money back home. Athens is where many believe their chances lie.

The Closure of the Only Housing Programme for Recognised Refugees

Beyond asylum seekers, the state’s focus has recently extended to dismantling the only housing programme available for refugees after they received their status. HELIOS, Greece’s only integration programme, run and funded by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, was abruptly terminated in November 2024 after repeated funding disruptions. While there have been promises of a new programme, no official announcement has been made, leaving a significant gap in support for refugees.

After receiving their status, beneficiaries of international protection are required to leave the camps they reside in within 30 days. Similarly, unaccompanied minors are required to leave the shelters they are housed in once they turn 18. But where are they expected to go? 

Athens: a Violent Reality

Completely unprepared for life in Greece—a country with a highly complex bureaucracy and systems that are often inadequate even for Greek nationals—, with no state support nor guidance, many find overcrowded, black-market community apartments to be the only realistic option available. Meanwhile, self-organised solidarity refugee squats, which have in previous years offered a viable alternative for some, have been targeted and repeatedly subjected to evictions by successive governments, further narrowing the already limited options for safe housing.

Facebook page of Kostas Bakoyiannis; former Mayor of Athens and nephew of the current Prime Minister

The Facebook page of former Mayor of Athens, and nephew

Despite the former mayor of Athens’ endorsement of the Homeless Bill of Rights in 2021—a declaration aimed at recognising housing as a fundamental right for all individuals—the government has left refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants entirely vulnerable to the city’s harsh realities. Athens now subjects people on the move, including children, to severe risks of exploitation and abuse, a situation further exacerbated by the systematic closure of all available housing programmes.

The state’s exclusionary policies aim to push people on the move into invisibility, creating an illusion of effective ‘migration management’ that comes at the expense of those it is meant to support. While Athenian neighborhoods evolve and transform, people on the move are forced into hiding in overcrowded apartments faced with multiple layers of state violence and neglect. Left without real alternatives, they navigate a system designed to exclude rather than support, trapped in a cycle of poverty and marginalisation. 

Words by Maria Kalochristianaki