Meanwhile In Greece, Homeless Family Of 5 Lives In Carton Boxes

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

As KeepTalkingGreece.com details, 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.

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.

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.”