Homeless have qualifications
Nine in 10 homeless people in Greece are educated and almost half of those living on the streets have been homeless for more than three years, according to a survey conducted by the Klimaka non-governmental organization which was made public yesterday. The poll found that one in 10 homeless people had studied at university, 23.5 percent completed senior high school and only one in 10 was illiterate. Two-thirds of homeless people are men, and their average age is 47. More than half of those polled said they were forced out of their homes due to financial problems and 16 percent said that divorce or separation was to blame. One in four homeless people said they had difficulty finding food to eat each day. Just over 13 percent said that during the previous two months they had eaten something they found on the street. The survey was carried out between July 2005 and May this year. Some 200 homeless people in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa and Naxos were polled.
