New home for unruly schoolboy
An 11-year-old boy who was caught in December throwing rocks at riot police outside Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University moved yesterday with his 12-member family into a new apartment which will be paid for by the state. The Health Ministry has agreed to pay for the apartment for the next three years after it was revealed that the boy’s family had been living in a 30-square-meter basement. Deputy Health Minister Giorgos Constantopoulos urged community workers to track down families in similar difficulties so the state could help them. «Nobody can be satisfied when 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and when high social spending… does not reach its intended target,» said Constantopoulos. The boy promised that he would attend school and stop misbehaving. «He used to be a wild child but now he has changed,» said Constantopoulos, who also gave the boy a mobile phone. The deputy minister said that the boy’s father would have his street-trading license renewed.
