Monday , November 4 2024
Home / News / Society / Patras: Homeless family of 5 lives in carton boxes (video)

Patras: Homeless family of 5 lives in carton boxes (video)

And when you think, you’ve seen and heard everything possible and impossible in Greece of austerity and crisis… there comes this incredible human story: a family of five lives in carton boxes. In the city of Patras in western Greece.

The family ended up on the streets after a labor accident of the father. The family has no income. For the last 8 months, the two adults and the three children live in a provisional “shelter” made of carton boxes they have places in a corner of an abandoned and half-constructed building.

patras family cartonboxes

The parents need to feed two toddlers aged 1.5 and 3.5 years old and an older child from the father’s previous marriage.

The family receives no disability pension or any allowance from the state that can help them make a living.

“They tell their children that living in boxes is a game,” local media TheBest.gr reports.

The father is unable to work. The family’s relatives cannot help them as they are also in dire economic situation.

They get meals from the local church, a neighbor to the building gives them from time to time the opportunity to take a bath.

Πάτρα: Μια τετραμελής οικογένεια με ένα ξανθό αγγελούδι 1,5 ετών και άλλο ένα 3,5 ζει εξαθλιωμένη, σε ένα χαρτοκουτόσπιτο! - Οι εικόνες συγκλονίζουν - ΒΙΝΤΕΟ - ΦΩΤΟ Λένε στα μικρά παιδιά τους, πως πρόκειται για παιχνίδι

Basic sanitary conditions are non-existent, the smell where these people live is beyond any description.

The father has been unemployed for the last 3.5 years. His leg was badly cut during works with a chainsaw.

Speaking to thebest.gr, the father said, he wished to have space in a plot to put a tent for his family and two hens in order to have something to feed his children.

And a job. “Anything that will help me be back on track.”

TheBest.gr has published the father’s mobile (+306973 586384) for everyone who wants to help the family. His name is Andreas Makris.

PS I can hardly assume that the father speaks English, but if there is will to help there is always a way 🙂

Check Also

Athens Metro Lines 2 & 3 extend night operation Fridays & Saturdays

Starting on Friday, November 1, 2024, the Athens Metro Lines 2 and 3 will extend …

11 comments

  1. What a shame… I only wonder how long it takes till the first “expert” posts that this misery is the fault of the family because they “lived beyond their means”.
    By the way, here is a list with 14 non profit/charity organisations who work in Greece: http://mashable.com/2015/07/16/greece-crisis-how-to-help/#dHkONLbPouqm . So far I had only to do with DESMOS, but they do still exist and do a good work in helping people in need, supporting schools etc. Maybe others here can also suggest some projects or organisations? I think even the smallest donations can help.

  2. I saw a woman, a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon with to very small children sitting in the street feeding hey youngest baby milk from a bottle. Homeless.
    Who did this ?
    Why did we let them ?

    • No easy answers, but a large part of the blame lies with the USA and Europe. We have interfered in the Middle East since its independence from the Ottoman and British empires. We provide arms to despotic regimes and terrorists, then complain hypocritically when they use them. We refuse to accept responsibility for the refugees created by our own governments’ actions, demanding that Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan house, feed and look after millions of homeless refugees (including small children) because we in Europe and the USA are more concerned with collecting/making money.
      ~
      Essentially, we live in a sick society. It is not as sick as it would have been under the Nazis, but it has deteriorated very badly in the last decades. We may still sink to the same levels of depravity as the Third Reich: the UK is well on the way.

  3. Ted from London

    This lack of social security should shame the Government and the EU. If they can not look after the poorer in society , whilst lining their pockets, what can they do.
    Shame on the EU, Shame on the politicians who allow this. What hope is there for Greece.

    • Shame on EU? Eu has give to Greece billions of euro, and lent to Greece other billions without interest (when everyone in the world refused to lent any penny to this unlucky country). I suggest to search for culprits among other people. You could start among these which employed 1 million of public servants, organized the Olympics and bought 13 missile Frigates.

      • Giaourti Giaourtaki

        1 million, hohoho… if one counts out teachers, doctors, nurses, soldiers, aso it is not 200.000 today and was never 1 million, it’s just typical mass-media-lies:

      • The EU has not given Greece such money; it has not even properly financed the cost of dealing with over a million refugees arriving since January 2015 — leaving the Greek state to pay. If you mean the fake “loans” made by the EuroGroup (a non-legal entity) that was to save German and French banks.

      • Not really. The EU and ECB gave 240 billion Euro to Greece that directly went to banks that made bad investments in Greece. These banks got a bailout, not the Greek people. Banks getting taxpayer funded bailouts is bad capitalism. TBTF is not a reason.

  4. They should tear his passport, claim to be a refugee and go to a refugee shelter. He and his children will than be fed, clothed, and housed by the government.

    • He is more honest and honorable than that.
      I heartbreakingly respect him…

    • Giaourti Giaourtaki

      Guess German ex-pats found a new trick for cheap hippie-life until they get their frat pension from home or this is just a dirty racist fantasy, this kind of Krauts whose favourite Greece love song chorusses with:
      “Oh, Greece is so nice but it would be much more nicer without all those Greeks”