The Refugee Relief Fund
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Migration Period
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Full Description
On November 3, 1922, the Ministry of Welfare passed a law establishing the Refugee Relief Fund (TPP), highlighting the necessity of finding a long-term solution to the problem of refugee housing at the highest political level. Establishing an independent body which would develop a comprehensive rehabilitation plan appeared to be the best course of action. The Fund was run by a ten-member committee under the supervision of the Ministry of Welfare and aimed to manage and distribute the funds raised towards refugee welfare and rehabilitation through charity fundraisers, bequests, donations and endowments. The decision to establish the Fund and explore solutions to the refugee housing problem that would prove more permanent than house requisitions stemmed from the political admission that the refugees would remain in Greece and not return to Asia Minor. The signing of the Lausanne Treaty soon after confirmed the permanence of the new status quo.
According to the law, the Refugee Relief Fund was a public entity based in Athens under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Welfare. Its purpose was the management and distribution of the money and goods collected from fundraisers, inheritances, donations and endowments towards refugee relief and rehabilitation. The Fund could also receive regular or emergency grants from the state and manage the earnings from a special tax imposed to fund its objectives. The Fund and all its resources would be managed by a ten-member Council appointed for a two-year term. The law’s seventeen short articles outlined the Fund’s internal regulation, described how it would utilise personnel from the state apparatus and precisely designated its members’ duties. However, the objectives and action plan of the Fund are missing from the text.
The Refugee Relief Fund operated from November 1922 until May 1925 and was a first attempt to centrally formulate a state housing policy. It handled funds raised from charity drives and state grants, constructing more than 6,500 dwellings, most of which (around 4,500) in Athens and Piraeus, on land owned or expropriated by the state. It completed and distributed 4,000 wooden dwellings with roofs made out of galvanised iron and tar paper, containing a total of 9,283 rooms. When the Fund was dissolved, a further 2,500 dwellings remained incomplete, containing 5,990 rooms. It is the room that functioned as the fundamental unit of measurement, and not the dwelling, since each room housed one family. The Fund was exclusively involved in ‘construction which started on ground level and finished on roof level’ and, consequently, was not responsible for the construction of any infrastructure, such as water supply and sanitation networks, road building or lighting installation. The total sum managed by the Fund was 360,000,000 drachmas. The Fund started building the refugee settlements of Kaisariani, Nea Ionia, Vyronas and Kokkinia, which were completed by the Refugee Settlement Commission after it assumed responsibility for all of the Fund’s incomplete projects.
Bibliography
Law Decree ‘On the Establishment of the Refugee Relief Fund’, GG no. 227A, November 9, 1922.
Decision 6301, ‘On the transfer of ownership of the settlements Pagkrati, Podarades and Kokkinia’, GG no. 5B, January 22, 1924.
Vika Gkizeli, Social Transformation and the origins of social housing in Greece, 1920-1930, Athens 1984.
Nikolas Mitzalis, Housing production and urban space during the Interwar, Athens 2008, pp. 143-147.