‘On the forced expropriation of properties to be used towards refugee settlement’

On September 15, 1922, the Revolutionary Committee announced its decision entitled ‘On the forced expropriation of properties to be used towards refugee settlement’. The decision allowed ‘the partial or total expropriation of furnished and unfurnished dwellings, farm houses, fields, warehouses, hospitals, monasteries, and any other type of property deemed appropriate to temporarily provide the refugees with accommodation or healthcare’. Already occupied properties would be expropriated only after all cinemas and clubs had been utilised. On 7.11.1924, the newspaper Elefthero Vima [The Free Tribune] writes about the imminent threat of requisitioning clubs, which indicates that until that point, this type of expropriation had not yet been implemented. The decisions to expropriate specific properties were made by the Ministry of Welfare and the responsible General Governors and Prefects, whereas in rural areas the task was assigned to the local mayors and village presidents. A three-member committee, consisting of one judicial employee, one administrative employee and one officer or priest, examined the houses on the expropriation list and consulted on the number of rooms that would be requisitioned and the number of refugees they would house. The already existing tenants would have to be limited to one room per family. The owners of expropriated properties and land received a compensation by the Ministry of Welfare or the refugees themselves if they could afford it. Nikolas Mitzalis mentions that the state spent 1,043,139.90 drachmas on the process of property expropriation, without clarifying to which time period he is referring (Mitzalis 2008: 139-140).

Expropriations were not meant to resolve the refugee housing issue, but rather to alleviate the problem temporarily. As the refugee inflows continued unabated and the country’s political life was still troubled by instability and strife, the two responsible ministries, Finance and Welfare, were proving incapable of handling the constantly worsening humanitarian crisis. Consequently, the Revolutionary Committee decided to grant full discretionary powers to the Ministry of Welfare. Due to the constant refugee arrivals, the open air refugee camps would either quickly refill, after their previous inhabitants had been moved to indoor shelters and temporary accommodation, or would expand, as the new arrivals crowded next to the older camp dwellers. New building requisitions were announced daily. The number of refugees was disproportionate to the existing housing stock, making it difficult for refugees to secure housing even when they had the resources to pay for their own accommodation. On September 19, the ministerial decision ‘On the measures taken with regards to the inflows of refugees from Asia Minor etc.’ was published in the Government Gazette. According to the decision, hoteliers could put in extra beds in the rooms and corridors, but also ought to charge low prices for the offered services.

A few days later, on September 30, 1922, Apostolos Doxiadis ‘was granted full dictatorial powers in order to house all refugees within eight days’. The National Theatre and Olympia Theatre were added to the already requisitioned Municipal Theatre and Royal Theatre, and even gambling clubs were utilised to house refugees who did not have the funds to secure their own housing. The expropriation decision became a law at the end of November, allowing the Minister of Welfare to complete his efforts. Referring to the publication of the law, the Minister of Welfare expressed his belief that the housing issue would be promptly resolved and pointed out that the vast majority of the refugees had already found accommodation. ‘All refugees have been housed and accommodated, but of course not to the highest standards of hygiene or well-being. With that in mind, we can say that no refugee is now homeless, except for a few hundred refugees who are still on the move, because they chose to relocate from the country to the city without acquiring the relevant permit from the ministry and the responsible police authority’.

Tens of refugee settlements had been erected at the port of Piraeus, the centre of the city and the neighbouring areas. Even after taking into account the difficulty of the circumstances, Henry Morgenthau did not share the Minister’s satisfaction. ‘In Piraeus, the coast has been taken over by the wretched camp housing thousands of refugees. Wretchedness is always picturesque and that’s the only sad virtue of human misery. The only shoes refugees have are made of discarded car tires. A new trend born out of need is wearing clothes made out of flour sacks, which is threatening to become more popular than wearing sackcloth or rags sewn together. It was difficult to find even the simplest cooking equipment. Tin containers were used as pots and rusty nails as sewing needles, while an actual needle is as rare a luxury for the refugees as it is for the Eskimos’ (Morgenthau 1994: 92). Despite the expropriations, there was still not enough housing. Moving the refugees away from Piraeus appeared to be the only effective solution to overcrowding and the only way to improve the sanitary and living conditions in the area. Within this context, a partial evacuation of the refugees gathered in Piraeus was ordered on September 30.