Domna Michailidou, paid a visit to Thessaloniki on Friday (8/5) as part of the actions for the relaunch of the institution of social housing through the use of public properties and inactive camps.
The first stop of the visit was the Municipality of Kordelios-Evosmos, where the minister had a meeting with the mayor, Lefteris Alexandridis. On the table were proposals for the development of municipal properties, with the aim of increasing the available housing stock and creating new solutions for citizens facing housing difficulties.
The meeting was also attended by the deputies of Thessaloniki Dimitris Kouvelas and Stratos Simopoulos, the coordinator of the Prime Minister’s Office in Thessaloniki Yannis Papageorgiou, the Secretary General of Demographic and Housing Policy Konstantinos Gloumis-Atsalakis, executives of social institutions, as well as representatives of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of National Defence.
Then the minister visited the former Ziaka camp together with representatives of the Ministry of National Defence and the local government. It is planned to create 1,034 social housing units on the site, which will be made available at low rent to vulnerable social groups.
The project is part of the overall planning for 2.350 new housing units in four former camps in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras.
Domna Michailidou said: “The former Ziaka camp captures the core of the new housing policy: inactive public land is being transformed into social housing for our fellow citizens in need of affordable housing. Thessaloniki has great housing needs and the Ziaka project is one of the most mature of our planning. Our goal is to proceed with the tender within 2026, so that the first homes can start to be delivered in 2027.”
During her stay in Thessaloniki, the minister also visited a beneficiary of the “Accessibility at Home” program in Ambelokipi. The citizen has already made interventions inside his house to adapt it to his needs, while a technical intervention at the entrance of the building for safe and autonomous access has been planned.
The insight into the beneficiary’s daily life highlighted in practice the importance of accessibility and independent living for people with disabilities.
In the afternoon, the minister participated as a keynote speaker at an event organised by Thessaloniki MP Stratos Simopoulos on the government’s policies to support the Greek family. The discussion was held on the occasion of the Mother’s Day and focused on issues such as childcare, parental work, housing, disability and demographics.
In her statement, Domna Michailidou outlined the ministry’s key interventions, keeping her statement unchanged: “The family is not supported by general statements, but by policies that respond to real needs: child care, parental work, disability, housing, daily security. This is what we do at the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family. With our “Neighbourhood Nannies”, which has already recorded more than 55,000 visits to the platform, our Early Childhood Intervention, Personal Assistant, Accessibility at Home and our housing policies, we are providing practical solutions to the everyday life of families. We do not claim that everything is solved. But today there is a plan, there are tools and there is work being done in practice.”
The speech was followed by a discussion with beneficiaries of the “All Digital” programme, which is about digital empowerment for people over 65 and people with disabilities. At the same time, she also spoke as a beneficiary of the Personal Assistant program, sharing her personal experience of daily support and autonomy services.
