Emergency Relief for Displaced Families in Athens

Across Athens, the need for food and hygiene items remains at a critical level. In recent weeks our team has received a growing number of requests via our emergency hotline for essential items.  We have been helping families put food on the table, providing dignified assistance and referring people to specialist organisations. 

This past period has seen the closure of the only camp in Athens and accommodations for people with vulnerabilities, putting 14,000 people at risk of homelessness. Not only this but the Greek government has been implementing a policy which has resulted in thousands of people being excluded from food provision for over 300 days.  

Thanks to donors like you, we have expanded our emergency response to reach 200% more people than we did 3 months ago! We provide more than 200 families with food, dignity kits, and case management services. We also serve as the “missing link,”  referring people in need to a range of services offered by a network of partners, including emergency housing, legal-aid, and support for women who have experienced trafficking. 

As we grow the program we have developed our services into holistic support for people affected by increasingly harsh policies, including reduced eligibility for accommodated housing, food access, and cash assistance. Our team consist of Greek social workers, and people with lived experience as refugees. In the past three months we have:

• Supported over 1,900 forcibly displaced men, women and children
• Provided 137 medical referrals 
• Managed the cases of 80 people 
• Referred over 90 people to other organisations, such as for legal-aid and accommodation support

This project has so far supported more than 6,555 people. This month alone we provided food packages to close to 200 families and partnered with The Saffron Kitchen Project, which offers hot meals of kibbel, taboule, kebab and other culinary delights popular in the native cuisines of the countries where many refugees come from. Moreover, they equip refugees with professional culinary skills. 

We still have a waiting list for food support, and hope that with your support we can continually expand our services. Thank you for standing in solidarity with us and for providing dignified assistance to those experiencing the worst effects of forced migration. 

If you have any questions or would like additional information, don't hesitate to contact me at hoc@lighthouserelief.org. 

In Solidarity,

Chloe

In December 2020, we launched the Streetwork Project in Athens to provide dignified support to vulnerable individuals and families, facilitate refugee integration, and strengthen a city-wide support network for people experiencing homelessness. We act as the “missing link” between refugees and services in the following ways:

• Outreach shifts to ascertain the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
• Distributions of food, hygiene kits, winter clothing, and other basic necessities.
• Booking medical and public service appointments.
• Referrals to legal service providers and shelters or housing programs.
• Interpretation and guidance on navigating bureaucratic procedures.
• Case management by a team of social workers.
• Multilingual emergency helplines.

Since then, we have supported 2,520 people (including 1,813 children); provided over 888 referrals; managed 463 cases, and addressed over 858 medical needs. Our team has distributed 440 food baskets in 2022 so far alone and more than 10,335 non-food items, including 364 baby packs and  9,746 hygiene items.

In April we also opened a space within a community centre where people can consult our social workers and obtain the support they need in a clean, safe environment. The most common request we hear is support for accommodations. 

Regrettably, a housing crisis for forcibly-displaced people in Athens is beginning to unfold. The phasing out of the government's apartment-style accommodation program for children, single mothers, and people with disabilities or other vulnerabilities (known as ESTIA II), combined with the closure of Elaionas, the only camp in Athens, puts their combined populations of approximately 14,000 people at risk of homelessness.

Although ESTIA II will not close completely until the end of this year, its housing capacity for asylum seekers with specific disabilities has already been reduced by half (from a height of 27,000) with palpable effects. Our Emergency Response Coordinator explains: 

In response, through the generosity of donors like you, we managed to support an additional 50 families with food and basic necessities as well as referrals and case management last month. We supported a total of 673 people, including 288 children and 161 women.

Driven by the rising number of requests we get for housing support, we are now in the process of acquiring two apartments in Athens. One will provide emergency short-term housing for people with dire needs whom we already support through case management, and the other will house single mothers with young children for up to a year. 

Thank you for your ongoing support of our efforts to relieve some of the worst effects of forced migration. We are grateful that you have chosen to partner with us on this journey to provide flexible, dignified assistance to men, women, and children as they overcome obstacles to claiming asylum and rebuilding their lives in Greece.   

If you have any questions or would like additional information, don't hesitate to contact me at hoc@lighthouserelief.org. 

In Solidarity,

Chloe

Links:

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