Photographers Blog

Greece’s new army of the homeless

By Yiorgos Karahalis

Ragged clothes, small piles of belongings and a bleak future, Greece’s new army of homeless have swelled in numbers since the debt crisis hit the country.

As part of ideas to highlight the story that has dominated headlines for the past two years, I wanted to illustrate the emerging problem of homelessness in a country which has seen a rise in the number of homeless by 20-25 percent in the last two years alone – a staggering rise in a country where adult children live with their parents, in some cases until the day they get married, and pensions traditionally go to support young families.

Athens is the country’s largest city with an estimated population of five million and where the homeless problem is much more visible than anywhere else. Even its city center, a top tourist spot, sees dozens of homeless people having made building entrances and shop fronts their new home. Sleeping bags and cardboard boxes piled against walls, a few shopping bags of clothes and food their only belongings. Homelessness has now permeated all genders, races, ethnic backgrounds and social classes.

The large number has forced shelters to restrict people to a few nights stay before making way for new people. Many of those who are getting a hot meal or just a night sleep in the shelters, are still stunned by how fast their lives changed. One of them said he could not believe how quickly it happened, how he went from a homeowner with a job as a chef to a homeless person cooking in such a shelter. “We are all potentially homeless,” he said.