Down and out of Athens

Marialena, a 42-year-old homeless AIDS sufferer and former drug addict who is on a methadone rehabilitation program, sleeps under a bridge in central Athens May 13, 2013. Since the debt crisis erupted in 2009, hundreds of thousands of Greeks have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate in the country reached 26.8 percent in March, new figures show. Klimaka, a nongovernmental organisation, estimated there were around 20,000 homeless in Greece in 2013. An over 100% increase from 2006.

Marialena’s tears ran down her face onto the dirty mattress where she and her boyfriend Dimitrios have been sleeping day in, day out, for over a year, under a bridge in one of Athens’ most run-down neighborhoods. Marialena, 42, is a homeless AIDS patient and a former drug addict on a Methadone rehab program.
Athens is full of sad stories like hers – of once ordinary people with a job and family who have found themselves on the fringes of society after the country’s economic crisis began in 2009. Up until a few years ago, homelessness was relatively unusual in this country of close family ties, but nowadays stories like Marialena’s are increasingly common.
As Dimitrios tries – without any gloves – to clean the bleeding gashes on her arm, a rat makes its way behind their mattress.
Dimitrios, 51 – who is divorced with a 21-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son – became homeless three years ago when he lost his job as a dancer in a Greek folk-dancing troupe.
“I want to die, this is not life – it’s a nightmare,”. “I’m gonna get sick and die,” Marialena cried out as her greenish-blue eyes filled with tears.
In a square nearby is Stephanos, 42, a soft-spoken man who worked for over 10 years in a well-known men’s clothing shop in central Athens. The shop closed on October 12, 2012 and a few months later when Stephanos could not pay his rent, he found shelter along with other homeless and drug addicts in a square in central Athens.
Dimitrios is like a father figure for his girlfriend Marialena and the few others who live under the bridge. “I feel responsible for all those lost souls,” he says as he rearranges the plastic chairs there.
“I had many dreams,” said Marialena. “I wanted to become a dancer or a doctor – the only dream I have now is to survive the day and eventually find a home.”
EU data shows that Greece has the highest jobless rate across the 27-nation bloc. The Greek statistics agency estimates that since the start of the crisis, 700-1,000 Greeks have been losing their jobs daily. Of an estimated 1.3 million unemployed Greeks, some 225,000 are receiving handouts from the state.
NGOs like Klimaka and Praxis, as well as the Red Cross, the Athens municipality and the Church of Greece are all helping by offering food, clothing and shoes as well as washing facilities and shelter in some cases.
But those are never enough to deal with the rising numbers: homeless people, some of them old and sick, are a common sight everywhere in Athens. According to a study by Klimaka, six out of 10 homeless people lost their home in the past two years. Forty-seven percent of them have children.
In 2011, 3.4 million people in Greece were living at risk of poverty and social exclusion, a Eurostat report said. That translates to 31 percent of the population, up from 27.7 percent in 2010