Homeless & unemployment figures rise in Athens

According to the Eleftherotypia newspaper, and based on the figures of the homeless center “Klimaka”, by the end of 2010 the homeless in Athens had reached 20,000. Most with no psychological imbalances or any form of addiction to drugs or alcohol, now live the nightmare of the economic crisis as they were found unemployed at the critical age between 40 and 55.

The figures of the National Statistics Service show that unemployment in Greece reached 15,8% in April 2011 and one month later, in May 2011, escalated to 16,1%.  
The total number of Greeks out of work is 811,340.

Following the publication of the above figures and the daily evidence of employment uncertainty, concern rises and talks about the situation infiltrate conversations. These are the people next door. Those who led a normal life some months ago, most with a 9-5 job, a house and a car or budgeted for the studies of their children.

Walking the streets of Athens you may become a witness to a well dressed mature man in his desperate efforts to locate a meal in a rubbish bin, a lady at an afternoon collection of vegetables from a pavement, after a street market or hear peoples concerns about an uncertain future - evidence of the country’s economic crisis turning into a social one.