With the onset of winter, UNHCR’s accommodation scheme, funded by the European Commission, reached last week its targeted goal of 20,000 places.
In support of the Greek Government’s response to refugees’ needs, the UNHCR accommodation programme provides housing for candidates for the EU Emergency Relocation Mechanism and for asylum-seekers considered especially vulnerable.
Some 58 per cent of the accommodation is small temporary apartments, run by UNHCR’s partners. A further 25 per cent is hotel rooms at special rates. With funding mainly from the European Union, the programme also hosts asylum-seekers in buildings rented for this purpose as well as with Greek host families. Beneficiaries are also provided with psychosocial, legal and interpretation services.
Since January, when the programme was launched, more than 21,000 asylum seekers have benefitted from this type of accommodation across Greece.
Many of those accommodated are waiting to be relocated to other European countries where their asylum applications will be assessed. As of 13 December, only 6,461 asylum seekers had left Greece under the EU Relocation Mechanism, less than 10 per cent of the 66,400 agreed last year.
