In an Athenian cafe, four women in their 60s pore over plans for a new kind of home that offers an innovative solution to the housing problems many senior citizens face.
Malamo, Thalia, Maria and Tonia plan to live together in what they call “solidarity housing,” a first in a country where the elderly face increasing insecurity after the country’s near-decade-long financial crisis.
“Our aim is to create solidarity housing for senior citizens in the face of insecurity in a society where health benefits are declining and housing prices are soaring,” said pensioner Malamo Stergiou, a former telecoms employee.
According to Bank of Greece data, rents have increased by 20 per cent since the country officially exited the crisis in 2018.
Two years ago, Stergiou set up a Facebook group called “Cohabitation Communities,” which quickly attracted 8,000 followers.
Last September, she also set up an NGO named Nama to finance the project.
The plan involves restoring a 1938 four-storey building in Athens, which the owner is offering at a low rent, and create 15 independent apartments and communal spaces.
Like most of the project’s supporters, Stergiou currently lives alone in an apartment in Athens.
Her only daughter works abroad, as do hundreds of thousands of young people who left the country, mainly during the 2010 to 2018 financial meltdown.
The crisis has dealt a serious blow to the Greek family model that historically acted as a safety net for the most vulnerable members of the group.
Elderly Greeks, especially the less well-off, now find themselves without the support traditionally provided by their children.
“What we lack is solidarity in the face of daily problems, whether financial or emotional,” said Thalia Novaki, a retired civil servant.
‘Afraid of loneliness’
A similar Facebook group was created in January 2023 in the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city.
“I’m afraid of loneliness. I’m not a homeowner and the idea of living together makes me happy”, said Olympia Manoussoyannaki, a secondary school teacher nearing retirement age.
Members of that collective visited similar initiatives in Germany and Denmark for ideas, said Filippos Polatsidis, the founder of the Thessaloniki group.
With 22.7 per cent of its population aged 65 and above according to a 2021 census, Greece ranks fourth among EU states with the highest proportion, behind Italy (23.8 per cent), Portugal (23.7 per cent) and Finland (23.1 per cent), according to Eurostat.
Upon being re-elected to a second four-year term last June, conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis created a new ministry for social cohesion and family issues to tackle what he called the “national danger” of a “demographic collapse.”
Despite a slight rise in the fertility rate after the end of the crisis — from 1.37 children per woman in 2019 to 1.43 in 2021 — Greece remains below the EU average rate (1.53 in 2021), according to Eurostat.
The government has announced an increase in child benefits to €2,400 for the first child, €2,700 for the second and €3,000 for the third.
But experts say that measures must be broader than just increasing the fertility rate.
“We need to meet the needs of young families (by multiplying childcare facilities) and the elderly, whose numbers are increasing thanks to the rise in life expectancy,” says Valia Aranitou, a professor of sociology at the University of Athens.
The demographic decline is mostly visible in the Greek countryside, which is becoming increasingly depopulated.
Athens and Thessaloniki account for almost half of Greece’s population of 10.4 million — which actually fell 0.5 per cent compared to a year ago.
One example is Petrokerassa, a village 45 kilometres from Thessaloniki, which lost half its population in past decades and now numbers just 137 inhabitants — 80 per cent of them senior citizens.
“In winter, if we call for help, no one will hear us,” says Thodoris Yannoudis, a 62-year-old local woodcutter.
