According to data provided by the head of the consumer affairs office of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), one of the country΄s two largest unions of private sector employees, since 2011 banks have granted 250,000 loans to people with an annual income of just 9,000 euros. Now 35.35% of these people are unemployed, 26.1% employed in the private sector with a drop in their wages and 16.67% are retired with a pension that has been reduced. In 2011, debt-laden families unable to pay back their loans accounted for 10% of the population, a figure which has since risen to an alarming 65%.
The severe economic crisis gripping Greece for the past six years has led to ever more people making use of social services just to survive. Moreover, one in every three Greeks who have taken out bank loans are now unemployed and unable to pay them back. Exemplary of the ever worsening crisis is the situation in the Athens municipality, where – according to data provided by the capital's mayor, Giorgos Kaminis, and the director of the city of Athens homeless shelter KYADA, Dimitra Nouli – the number of Athens inhabitants of all ages making use of soup kitchens offered by the city council is rising by the day, as is the number of families turning to municipal social service for their basic needs.
On the basis of data provided by KYADA, over 20,000 citizens from the capital line up at the social services' offices every day to just to eat.
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