Access to Housing and Social Inclusion in a Post-Crisis Era: Contextualizing Recent Trends in the City of Athens

Abstract

The way housing affordability evolved since WW2 in Greece—and in its capital city in particular—is an example of how the South European welfare system managed, for several decades, to provide socially inclusive housing solutions without developing the services of a sizeable welfare state until global forces and related policies brought it to an end. The increased role of the market in housing provision since the 1980s, the rapid growth of mortgage lending in the 1990s, the neoliberal policy recipes imposed during the crisis of the 2010s and the unleashed demand for housing in the aftermath of the crisis have led to increased housing inequalities and converged the outcome of this South European path with the outcome of undoing socially inclusive housing solutions provided by the welfare state in other contexts. The article follows longstanding and recent developments concerning the housing model in Greece and especially in the city of Athens, focusing on mechanisms that have allowed access to affordable housing for broad parts of the population during different historical periods, and examines the extent to which the current housing model remains inclusive or not. The aim here is to discuss the most important challenges concerning access to decent housing and highlight the need for inclusive housing policies to be introduced into the current social and political agenda.

Multiple Deprivation and Urban Development in Athens, Greece: Spatial Trends and the Role of Access to Housing

“…The analysis in this paper confirms the findings of previous research about the concentration of poverty [20] and the role of housing systems in the social geography of the city [12,38]. What is more, the paper shows how Athens' spatial patterns of deprivation appear to be tied to its urban development trajectory via the way that the city residents access housing.…”

“…The inner western suburbs were the traditional residential location of the native working class, where social mobility remained much more spatially fixed compared to eastern Athens, while the strata that moved further outward were composed of less skilled and lower income households [37]. The inflow of people from the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, and from Asia and Africa in the 2000s, repopulated and revalorized the substandard dwelling stock in central areas of the city [7,38], but diverse migrant groups inhabited marginal spaces on the city periphery as well [39].…”

Towards a political economy of violence: Property and revanchism in West Thessaloniki

“…The state did not take active part in the reconstruction process. Instead, it supported the urbanizing population to build their houses by themselves (Κalfa, 2019;Leontidou, 1990;Maloutas et al, 2020) through a technology of aided-self-help (Kalfa, 2019: 12;Kwak, 2015). Aided self-help became the main tool through which a whole country negotiated its transition to modernity (Kalfa, 2019, p. 92), was deployed in the name of freedom, albeit technical, both in terms of governing practices (minimal involvement of the state) and in terms of ethical technologies (the dominant moral substance of self-reliance) for constructing new subjectivities (Rose, 2017).…”

Refugee Mobilities and Institutional Changes: Local Housing Policies and Segregation Processes in Greek Cities

“…Under these conditions, after the massive arrivals of foreign immigrants in Greece, in the early 1990s, the rented market was more or less the only solution for affordable housing (Arvanitidis, Petrakos, & Skouras, 2013). The recent severe economic crises lead to massive unemployment, loss of income, and impoverishment along with increased taxation on property, while the state stood unable to address the needs of most vulnerable population groups in need of care and support (Kandylis & Maloutas, 2020;Maloutas et al, 2020). When refugees arrived, a new accommodation scheme emerged, a "dual housing model" (Kandylis & Maloutas, 2020), which is based on two distinct accommodation schemes: (a) rented or free temporary housing in apartments (Emergency Support to Integration & Accommodation Program [ESTIA]) and (b) refugee camps.…”

“…Thus, we highlight the specificities and peculiarities of Southern Europe and Greece in particular regarding urban development and housing provision in general. We stress that crucial to understanding institutional transformations and their effects on the spatial integration of refugees is the role of the Greek welfare system, with its interplay of familial and clientelistic political practices and its traditional weakness to provide affordable housing (Maloutas, Siatista, & Balambanidis, 2020).…”