18 and homeless: how Greece’s housing crisis fails displaced youth
A closer look at the policies, gaps, and systems that leave young people behind the moment they turn 18.
Housing
It’s something we all need.
Not a luxury. Not a reward. Just a requirement for survival.
A safe place to live, where we can cook, eat, sleep, rest, and grow, is the foundation of a healthy, dignified life. It’s where we rest, and where we dream our future.
More than four walls: what safe housing really means
For a young person trying to build a life in a new country, safe housing means a lot more than four walls and a roof.
It means:
Practical safety: no mould, working electricity, secure doors etc.
Community safety: living in a neighbourhood free from police violence, discrimination, targeted attacks etc.
Access: the ability to reach school, healthcare, social spaces, jobs etc.
Legal security: a proper contract, official registration, and knowing rights are protected under the law etc.
Without this foundation, everything else becomes harder. Staying in school, finding a job, taking care of your health, feeling like you matter: all become uphill battles.
The housing crisis hits harder when you’re alone
Around the world, many of us seem to be caught in the same unsettling conversation.
“Housing prices are skyrocketing.” “Where will I live?” “How will I afford to take care of myself?”
Now imagine facing all of this without a family network nearby, without an understanding of your rights, without savings, without speaking the local language, unable to confidently make a phone call, let alone advocate for yourself.
Now imagine you’ve just turned 18.
Greece’s housing crisis
In 2023, Greek households spent over 35% of their disposable income on housing, nearly double the European Union average of 19.7%. Yet, despite this growing burden, Greece invests less than 3% of its GDP in housing, ranking among the lowest in the EU.1
Soaring rents and housing costs, combined with overlapping, interdependent economic, social, and energy challenges, have pushed many into precarious living situations. Meanwhile, wages have not kept pace.2
Short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and investment schemes such as the Golden Visa have only intensified the pressure, driving prices even higher and putting safe, affordable homes further out of reach.3
These challenges hit low- and middle-income households hardest, leaving more and more people struggling to find secure and adequate accommodation.
When housing policy is missing by design
Still, there is no real housing policy, and crucially, no comprehensive social housing programme to provide affordable, stable homes for displaced people or vulnerable Greek residents alike.
The Greece 2.0 Recovery and Resilience Plan, endorsed by the European Commission and promising "housing support to the most vulnerable groups threatened by or facing homelessness”,4 has failed to produce results. Despite funds being disbursed, vulnerable groups remain unsupported.
The absence of policy is a policy in itself. For many, it feels like poverty management rather than social support.
These failures don’t only affect displaced people. They intersect with a national crisis: skyrocketing rents, evictions, energy poverty, home auctions, and growing homelessness.
These are not accidental outcomes, but the result of a broader neoliberal social policy that prioritises profit over people and undermines the right to housing at every level.5
Greek law (Article 31 of the Asylum Code) promises equal housing access for those with international protection. But the reality couldn’t be further from the law.
The data that erases homelessness
In 2018, the Greek Ministry of Social Solidarity initiated a one-off pilot project to establish a permanent system for counting people experiencing homelessness in Greece. This official count identified 628 individuals in Athens, interviewed in shelters, day centres, and municipally supported housing.6
But this figure is not only outdated, it’s misleading.
It fails to capture the scale, complexity, and growing invisibility of homelessness in Greece today.
In stark contrast, a 2022 report by FEANTSA estimated that in Attica alone, 17,000 people were sleeping rough. Nationwide, the total number of people experiencing homelessness was nearly 500,000, more than 600 times the official 2018 count.7
This isn’t just a data gap. It’s a policy failure. One that keeps the ‘crisis’ out of sight, and off the agenda.
Much of this homelessness remains unseen, a phenomenon known as “hidden homelessness.” Precarious conditions are invisible to official statistics, yet increasingly common among displaced young people struggling to find a place to call home.8
18 and invisible: abandoned at a critical moment
For young displaced people in Greece, this is the harsh reality.
At 17, a young person might live in a shelter or protected accommodation for minors. But on their 18th birthday, everything changes. They ‘age-out’. Overnight, they lose legal protection, accommodation, and support.
Why? Because in the eyes of the Ministry of Migration, turning 18 means you are no longer vulnerable.
It is a single day, an arbitrary deadline, that wipes away any recognition of what a young person has experienced or still needs.
This is not integration. It’s abandonment.
As the saying goes:
“Σκάσε και κολύμπα!” – Shut up and swim.
A system built to exclude
Until 2015, Greece operated as a ‘transit country’. Its migration policies reflected this, focused on short-term passage, not long-term protection.
There was no coherent system for receiving, identifying, or integrating displaced people. But when the Balkan Route closed, and thousands found themselves ‘trapped’ within Greek borders, the cracks became undeniable.9
Under extraordinary pressure, Greece leaned on emergency responses and interventions: hotspots, camps, and patchwork services, many of which still fail to meet basic standards of safety and dignity today.
Now, the pressure is mounting again.
In 2024, more than 15,000 asylum seekers were returned under the Dublin Regulation, many to Greece, which received the third-highest number of transfer requests in the EU. Germany led the ‘surge’, despite growing evidence that Greece lacks the capacity to provide housing or support for returnees.10
According to Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), the people that returned, many with ‘recognised refugee’ status, are not met with safety. They are met with systemic neglect: no access to safe housing, no income support, no real chance at social inclusion.11
And while this situation plays out on Greek soil, it’s shaped by EU-wide funding frameworks, migration rules, and political narratives that too often prioritise borders over people.
In August 2024, a German court ruled that returning refugees to Greece was “unreasonable,” citing the high risk that they would be unable to find secure housing or access legal employment or state support.12
This is not sustainable. Without political will or planning, the cycle of exclusion deepens.
Precarity by design
These structural gaps are especially difficult for young people transitioning to adulthood.
Some end up sleeping rough in Athens. Others sofa-surf, squat, or live in overcrowded and unsafe apartments. These living conditions expose them to insecurity, exploitation, violence.
In the absence of affordable housing or social support, many are pushed into precarious, exploitative work to cover rent or buy food, often without contracts, fair pay, or labour protections.
There are a handful of shelters for young people over 18, but this is not sufficient. Most operate at capacity, with long waiting lists.
A turning point
Greece’s housing crisis doesn’t just reflect gaps in infrastructure, it reflects a deeper failure of political will and public policy. And for displaced young people, turning 18 marks a challenging entry into that failure.
This isn’t about a few unlucky cases. It’s a system that leaves thousands without support, without options, and without safe places to live and build a future.
And this is only half the story.
In Part Two, we’ll explore the incredible things being done at a grassroots level, and what still needs to happen.
We’ll look at community-led solutions, the urgent need for policy reform, and why we must move beyond crisis response toward long-term, dignity-based care.
Because when housing fails, everything else follows. And the cost, to lives and futures, is far too high to ignore.
In hope and solidarity. The Canopy Collective.
Add your voice
Do you have a perspective, interest, or opinion on this topic that you would like to share as part of this series? If so, please get in touch with natasha@velosyouth.org. We welcome your thoughts, opinions, questions, and insight as we work toward a future where every young person can walk into adulthood with confidence, dignity, and opportunity.
The Canopy Collective is a grassroots initiative that Velos Youth, Action for Women, and Mazí Housing established in 2024. Together, we provide a centralised hub and safe space for displaced youth aged 16-30 in Athens, delivering integrated, holistic support. We collaboratively offer a wide range of services, prioritise self-reliance and long-term stability. We believe that young people are experts in their own lives and empower them as agents of change, creating attainable and sustainable pathways to resilient futures.
Reference list
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). (n.d.). Greece: National Recovery and Resilience Plan – Technical Cooperation. Retrieved from
Finway. (2025). Housing rental in Greece 2025: Average prices and trends. Retrieved from https://finway.com.ua/en/housing-rental-greece-2025-average/
RES-Greece. (2025, May 16). Priciest rental neighborhoods in Greece and rising costs of rents. Retrieved from https://www.res-greece.com/news/2025/05/16/priciest-rental-neighborhoods-in-greece-and-rising-costs-of-rents
Government of Greece. (2021). Greece 2.0: National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Retrieved from https://greece20.gov.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/NRRP_Greece_2_0_English.pdf
Kourachanis, N. (2024). Housing crisis and neoliberal social policy in Greece. Society, 61, 437–441. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-024-01009-0
Kourachanis, N. (2018). From camps to social integration? Social housing interventions for asylum seekers in Greece. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 39(3–4), 221–234. Retrieved from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSSP-08-2018-0130/
FEANTSA. (2023). Measuring homelessness in Greece: A case for urgent reform. European Journal of Homelessness, 17(1). Retrieved from https://www.feantsaresearch.org/public/user/Observatory/2023/EJH_17%20-%201/EJH_17-1_RN1_v02.pdf
FEANTSA. (2022). Country overview: Greece – Appendices. Retrieved from https://www.feantsa.org/public/user/Resources/reports/2022/Overview_Appendices.pdf
Emfasis Foundation. (2023). Breaking the cycle of hidden homelessness in Greece: Emfasis non-profits impact. Retrieved from https://www.emfasisfoundation.org/en/blog/unanima-publication-breaking-the-cycle-of-hidden-homelessness-in-greece-emfasis-non-profits-impact
Eurostat. (2025, July 4). Housing costs overburden rate in the EU. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20250704-1
Refugee Support Aegean (RSA). (2025a). No support for refugees returned to Greece. Retrieved from https://rsaegean.org/en/no-support-for-refugees-returned-to-greece/
Refugee Support Aegean (RSA). (2025b). Recognised refugees in Greece: Left without support. Retrieved from https://rsaegean.org/en/recognised-refugees-in-greece-2025/
InfoMigrants. (2025). Germany: Over 15,000 asylum seekers returned after EU transfers. Retrieved fromhttps://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/61943/germany-over-15000-asylum-seekers-returned-after-eu-transfers
