From laissez-faire to the camp: Immigration and the changing models of affordable housing provision in Athens

In this chapter we provide an overview of the response of the Greek housing system as regards affordable housing provision for the transnational newcomers of recent decades. We argue that this response unfolded in a neoliberal combination of a market-led laissez-faire approach and an authoritarian approach accompanied by humanitarianism. The former used the existing housing stock to integrate the majority of immigrants in subordinate positions of the socioeconomic hierarchy. The latter uses displacement as a means of constituting, isolating and disciplining minorities. The balance between the two seems to favour the latter when crisis conditions and especially crisis discourses prevail.