| New York Times | - |
But
on Thursday, the priest, Father Ignatios Moschos was worried that he
would no longer have enough food to go around if the country's economic
paralysis continues, as it seems likely to do even if Greece and its creditors manage to work out a last ...
ATHENS
— Behind the lace curtains of a soup kitchen run by a parish in the
humble Athens neighborhood of Kerameikos, the needy and hungry sit down
to a plate of sliced cucumbers, three hunks of bread, a shallow china
bowl of chickpea soup and often a piece of meat. Sometimes there is even
ice cream, a special treat.
People
prize the refectory, run by a priest, for its homeyness, and they
travel long distances to fill their empty stomachs at least once a day.
But
on Thursday, the priest, Father Ignatios Moschos was worried that he
would no longer have enough food to go around if the country’s economic
paralysis continues, as it seems likely to do even if Greece and its creditors manage to work out a last-minute deal this weekend to avert a Greek exit from the euro.
“It
will be hard, dark, painful,” the priest said, nibbling from a bowl of
pistachios as a long line of people waited for their turn to eat at the
communal tables. “We will have trouble receiving food.”
Poverty in Greece
has been deepening since the financial crisis began more than five
years ago. Now, aid groups and local governments say they are beginning
to feel the effects of nearly two weeks of bank closings, as Greece struggles to keep its financial system from failing and to break out of years of economic hardship.
And
any deal with creditors this weekend will bring further cuts in
government spending. It will also bring higher taxes and, as a
consequence, more short-term pressure on the economy.
As
Athens takes on the aura of Soviet Russia, with lines of people outside
banks waiting to receive their daily cash allowance, some aid groups
are seeing their supply channels narrow. By some accounts, lines for
food, clothing and medicine have grown fivefold in parts of the capital
in the last two weeks alone.
The European Parliament president, Martin Schulz, has said he shares Greeks’ concerns. President Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission said this past week that the European Union
was making plans for humanitarian aid to Greece to cushion the blow if a
third bailout was not worked out by Sunday and Greece was forced out of
the euro system.
Several
organizations and the city government of Athens said they were making
fund-raising plans. A prominent group, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation,
announced on Wednesday that it was immediately allocating 20 million
euros, or more than $22 million, toward the municipal governments of
Athens and Thessaloniki “to cover the immediate needs of citizens in the
large urban centers, who are experiencing the consequences of the
deepening crisis more severely.”
Of
course, not all of Athens is suffering. In central Athens and more
affluent suburbs, the cafes are full of Greeks and tourists eating,
drinking and talking until well past midnight. And if there is a deal
with the creditors, it could lead to the banks reopening at some point
soon.
But
much of Greece has been struggling for years with extremely high levels
of unemployment, cuts in social welfare programs and pensions and what
the Greek central bank concluded in 2014 was one of the highest rates of
income inequality among European Union countries.
Since
July 3, after the cash controls began, the Venetis chain of about 80
bakeries has expanded its charity program and has been giving away about
10,000 loaves of bread a day — a third of total production — to the
destitute, families with many children, the unemployed and retirees.
They
could be seen flying out of the darkness like birds to a Venetis outlet
in the Pangrati neighborhood of Athens one evening a few days ago,
belying the neighborhood’s facade of prosperity. In the poorest
neighborhoods, scuffles have broken out, Panayiotis Monemvasiotis, the
general manager of the company, said Friday.
“In
the third round of austerity measures, which is beginning now, it is
certain that in Greece there will be no consumers — there will be only
beggars,” he said.
In
neighborhoods where tourists are less likely to go, such as the area
around Omonia Square, people in ragged clothes can be found sleeping on
sidewalks and in public parks. Others who are just a bit luckier are
able to hide their poverty. They negotiate rent cuts from landlords,
take advantage of social service agencies like Praksis that offer free
showers and washing machines to people without electricity or water, or
go to the soup kitchens scattered throughout Athens.
Xenia
Papastavrou, a founding member of Boroume, We Can, a nongovernment
agency that matches excess food from supermarkets, restaurants and even
wedding parties, with organizations that distribute it to people who are
hungry across Greece, said that more people have wanted to donate over
the last two weeks, because they see the need.
“I’m sure that things will get worse,” Ms. Papastavrou said.
One
of the largest soup kitchens in Athens is run by the city government,
in collaboration with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Athens, near
Omonia on Pireos Street. It serves 600 to 1,000 people a day, city
officials said. Mayor George Kaminis of Athens issued a statement
Thursday saying that the city was helping support 20,000 people a day
with groceries, hot meals and other basics.
At
a donation center run by the city in Kato Patisia, the number of people
arriving each day for food, medicine and clothing has risen to 100 from
20 in just the last two weeks, Alexandros Kambouroglou, an adviser to
the mayor, said Thursday. He attributed that escalating demand to fear
of future shortages.
Charities
and government officials say that as long as the banks are closed and
the movement of money outside Greece is prohibited, they face the same
problem as every other Greek — they cannot import supplies.
“As
a city we are working very systematically to make sure we have
provisions,” during this period of capital controls, Yorgos
Stamatopoulos, press secretary for the mayor of Athens, said Thursday.
Until
recently, the Galini Institution soup kitchen run by Father Moschos,
gave food to anyone who wanted it. But the demand has grown so quickly
that it has begun asking for documentation that people are poor, such as
proof of monthly income, employment status and the inability to make
rent or utility payments.
It
also used to close for part of the summer. But Father Moschos said he
believed the need would be so great this summer that it would have to
remain open.
In
the morning, the soup kitchen gives a package of cooked food to people
who prefer to take it home than to eat lunch communally. On Thursday the
take-home package contained a container of pasta with bacon and tomato
sauce, bread, sesame bread rings called koulouria and a can of
evaporated milk. People are expected to bring the container back for
more.
The
volunteers, including Evaggelia Konsta, whose family donates meat from
its meat company, sprang up to greet a 93-year-old woman who arrives
every day by bus, alone, to fetch food for herself and, she said, her
five grandchildren.
The
dining hall seats 56, and people eat in several shifts. The number of
people rises to about 450 a day on weekends, from 350 on weekdays, Ms.
Konsta said. There is air-conditioning, a relief from the scorching sun.
A heavy brass chandelier hangs overhead and volunteers politely put
plates of food on the table one at a time.
Fotis
Nikolaou, 39, an unemployed painter and tiler, wolfed down some soup on
Wednesday, then swabbed his plate with bread. He complained that the
daily wage for a laborer like him had dropped as low as €10 for 12 hours
of work, and that is off the books. Only immigrants would take such
jobs, he said.
He
had no doubt that life would only get harder for Greece in the coming
weeks and months, and that he would only wait longer for the soup. But
he found comfort in thinking he would not be alone.
“We could suffer 20 years,” he said. “But at least we’ll suffer together.”
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