[MGSA-L] Pauperization of Greek Student Residencies

June Samaras june.samaras at gmail.com
Sun Jan 19 18:52:13 PST 2014


http://greece.greekreporter.com/2014/01/19/pauperization-of-greek-student-residencies/

Pauperization of Greek Student Residencies
By Iro-Anna Mamakouka <http://greece.greekreporter.com/author/anna/>
on *January
19, 2014 In Community
<http://greece.greekreporter.com/category/community/>, Education
<http://greece.greekreporter.com/category/education-2/>, Infrastructure
<http://greece.greekreporter.com/category/infrastructure/>, News
<http://greece.greekreporter.com/category/uncategorized/>*

[image: resid] <http://greece.greekreporter.com/files/resid.jpg>In Greece,
thousands of students don’t have the opportunity to attend a university
outside their hometown because their families’ low income can’t support a
small apartment. But even if the students wish to stay at the Public
Student Residence, they might not get in as the rooms are extremely
limited. On the other hand, students who do eventually get a room in the
residence, must live under poor conditions.

At the same time, in Serres, Northern Greece and in Larissa, central
Greece, there are buildings which were built with the unique purpose of
covering the needs of student housing and which nonetheless still remain
empty. In other cities like Athens and Thessaloniki, rooms in residencies
become available daily. However, instead of immediately being given to
someone else on the waiting list, the rooms remain empty for months due to
the extensive Greek
bureaucracy<http://greece.greekreporter.com/?s=bureaucracy&submit=>
.

A freshman student of the TEI of Athens said “If I won’t be accepted in the
residence, I will have to go back home.” In many cities in Greece, hundreds
of students are studying without anywhere to stay. Patras, in Peloponnese,
is the a perfect example of this.”

Humidity is deteriorating the building of the Student Residence in Patras
and rainy weather causes major leakage problems. A University of Patras
student stated “The biggest issue is not to have a room at all. At this
very moment, there are at least 50 students in the streets being
continuously hosted from one place to another. In the past, if the
residence’s rooms were not enough, the university was renting rooms in
hotels for the students. Today, because of the ongoing crisis in Greece,
the budget is restricted.”

At the Student Residence of the National Technical University of
Athens<http://greece.greekreporter.com/?s=national+technican+university+of+Athens&submit=>
(NTUA),
the rooms are extremely humid, the power is not always on, the plumbing is
so old that its leaking could result in the flooding of a whole floor and
leave another without water. And of course there is no Wi-Fi.

In Larissa, the residencies are rather new. The students have power and hot
water but the heating is not always on. Moreover, next to the already
existing residencies, there is a new building with 300 rooms ready for use
which nonetheless remains empty. “This is pure negligence,” highlighted a
student.

-- 
June Samaras
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : june.samaras at gmail.com
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