Refugee & Migrant Emergency in Europe - City of Athens shelter analysis

CRS has also completed in-depth urban shelter assessment in Athens, which identified different building typologies, and potential cost/benefit analysis for each approach. Key findings include:

• The city of Athens due to the economic crisis has an estimated 1800 vacant spaces in the center ranging from entire vacant building blocks to individual flats and storefronts.
• A large percentage of this number belongs to various public sectors such as ministries, the national insurance company, municipalities, etc., that are left unused, redundant and in poor condition.
• The remaining belong to the private sector either to individual owners or to small private partnerships that do have the funds to restore, rent or develop as well as increasing costs due to recent increases in tax liabilities.
• A large number of different shelter typologies can be found in the center from large office buildings, entire housing blocks that are vacant to street-level storefronts that can be used for potential shelter options.