LGBTQ+ housing vulnerability in Greece: intersectionality, coping strategies and, the role of solidarity networks

Abstract

This article analyzes housing vulnerability and dispossession in Greece through a focus on LGBTQ+ gender identity and sexuality. Since families often reject non-heteronormative members, LGBTQ+ subjectivities are forced into housing dispossession, displacement, and precarious living conditions. Due to lack of institutional rights or support infrastructure and the existing discrimination in regard to access to housing, LGBTQ+ people turn to coping strategies, which primarily involve support through informal, mutual aid networks. This article is based on qualitative research in Athens that included 22 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ people and solidarity networks; it explores LGBTQ+ housing pathways and coping strategies by focusing on intersectional housing vulnerability. In so doing, it further re-addresses housing precarity through LGBTQ+ agency as a generative of different narratives and articulations of vulnerability vis-a-vis traditional family networks and state institutions.

Keywords:

• LGBTQ+
• housing vulnerability
• housing dispossession
• intersectionality
• Greece

Introduction

Housing is a key pillar of social reproduction in contemporary societies, that in Southern Europe is often provided by nuclear family members or familial networks. In Greece, in particular, family housing support is dominant in light of a lack of institutional infrastructure and welfare provision (Kourachanis, 2016). Given the significant role of the family in securing access to housing and the long-standing discriminatory traditions against LGBTQ+ subjectivities[1], the family constitutes a conflictual terrain presupposing family control over the life choices and sexuality or gender identity. Moreover, following the economic crisis of 2008, access to housing has deteriorated for a large part of the population in Greece, as rental costs and private debt (mortgage or otherwise) have steeply increased over the past decade (Naldini & Jurado, 2013; Pinto & Guerra 2013; Serracant, 2015; Kourachanis, 2016). Considering that LGBTQ+ people may have constituted a vulnerable social group before the crisis, during the recent economic developments, they are further impacted under the threat of losing access to housing in the ways they are re-negotiating their sexuality and gender identities.

The gender and sexuality dimensions regarding access to housing have been debated in feminist critiques of the meaning of home (see, for instance, Blunt 2005; Blunt and Dowling, 2006). Nevertheless, in-depth studies into the various housing trajectories, difficulties and experiences of LGBTQ+ domesticities have been limited, especially in Southern European contexts (e.g. Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou, 2021). This article aims to contribute to this scholarship in three ways: First, in empirical terms, by bringing forward the often invisible, in current debates, housing narratives and trajectories of LGBTQ+ people from the under-studied Greek context. Second, in analytical terms, we intend to distinguish (through the aforementioned housing pathways) the different dimensions of forced translocations, housing dispossession, and displacement based on intersecting labor precarity, loss of income, barriers in accessing education and long-standing discrimination based on gender and/or sexual identity. All these eventually conduce to housing vulnerability, precarity and discrimination in multiple areas of social life and reproduction, as well as specific coping strategies that involve informal mutual aid and solidarity networks. Finally, in conceptual terms, our goal is to re-address housing vulnerability and precarity through a focus on LGBTQ+ agency as a generator of narratives that problematize the role of traditional family networks and state institutions in regard to access to housing.

The article is structured into three main sections. In the first, we discuss relevant debates and studies that problematize LGBTQ+ housing vulnerability in different contexts and through multiple viewpoints. Following this, we situate the discussion in the context of Greece by addressing the different actors that constitute housing provision; at the same time, we foreground the dominant heteronormative conceptions that lead to exclusions. In the second section, we discuss the methodological framework employed and the characteristics of our research participants. The third section presents an empirical analysis of our research findings. We examine the different origins and aspects of LGBTQ+ housing vulnerability in regard to in-family conflict as key to dispossession and displacement; its intersectional dimensions concerning labour conditions, access to education, rights, and the like; the different housing pathways of research participants conditioned by their gender identity or sexuality; and the informal solidarity networks offering coping strategies in light of the absence of formal supportive institutions. In the concluding section, we discuss the key findings of the research to foreground aspects that require further enquiry and research into LGBTQ+ housing vulnerability and precarity in the Greek context and beyond.

LGBTQ+ and housing: situating the debate

Drawing on housing studies debates, this section discusses key approaches that inform our conceptual premises and the article’s contribution to LGBTQ+ housing analyses more broadly. Our aim is to flesh out key contributions that provide insights into how housing may be experienced, discussed, disrupted, made and re-made.

Clapham (2002, 2005) defines ‘housing pathways’ as the social practices of a household related to housing over time and space, including the continually changing sets of relationships and interactions that a household experiences over time in its housing consumption. This approach, helps us explore household pathways and defining factors, including changes in employment or family status, life planning and family strategies, the politico-economic context, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Clapham’s framework is closely developed to ideas on life or housing careers, yet also adopts to an extent the concept of ‘home-place’ that incorporates the spatial, psychological and social dimensions of housing decisions. Moreover, it locates housing consumption over time in different locales, relating to its physical characteristics, quality, price, mobility, and different sets of meanings and attributes of housing that emanate from interactions depending on identity construction or lifestyle choices.

Therefore, crucial in the conceptualization of housing pathways is the dimension of self-identification of individuals and the dimension of time relating to individual or family trajectories, as well as the historical context in which such pathways develop. In this sense, labor markets and family support can be considered as main factors of differentiation that define the experience of buying and renting (Clapham et al., 2014; Hoolachan et al., 2017; McKee et al., 2017; Soaita et al., 2017). The dynamic nature of pathways, the centrality of time in this framing, as well as the fact that people make decisions which are not strictly rational, rather can be influenced by their attachment to specific places (Easthope, 2004), become key in our understanding of changing housing practices. For instance, Easthope’s (2004, 137) conceptualization of ‘homeplaces’ conveys this particular significance attached to home, whereby one’s dwelling is linked to one’s well-being and identity, portraying in this way the dynamics and conflicts related to home as a place.

At the same time, queer and feminist readings of ‘home’ expand our view of housing by seeing the home as an ideological construction that is established experientially. Thus, home constitutes a significant type of place, a social, cultural and emotive construct (Easthope, 2004) that may nourish differential feelings of belonging, alienation, estrangement (Gorman-Murray, 2006a), security or violence, desire or fear, depending on domestic experiences and contexts of social relations. It is a multidimensional place that shapes meanings, emotions, experiences and relationships and is simultaneously being shaped by these (Blunt, 2005). Thus, domestic relations are constituted by experiences and actions. This is particularly important for LGBTQ+ domesticities that can face conflicts. In these cases, people’s sense of home, where ‘habitus’ is enacted (Easthope, 2004), may change significantly due to either internal conflicts or external forces, such as financial or job insecurity. Furthermore, in its cultural connotations, home is also the place where the notion of the family is constructed, often based on heteronormative representations of particular gendered subjects, and where material, social or psychological support is provided as ‘family welfare’, substituting for absent institutional support (Mallett, 2004).

Therefore, home-making can acquire a normalization role for gender identities, sexualities and uses, which are socially constructed and continuously reconstructed or subverted, through everyday practices that re-adjust housing in order to shelter individuals and interactions; thus, making space for diverse and increasingly fluid home-remakings (Valentine et al., 2003; Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Gorman-Murray, 2008a, 2008b). These all point to new representations of gender and sexuality within housing pathways by problematizing heteronormative conceptions and experiences of home-making. Nevertheless, they do not come without attempts to domesticate, regulate, or sanitize public perceptions of LGBTQ+ households, highlighting home-making as closely related to hegemonic norms while marginalizing other emerging gendered or sexualized representations of home (Gorman-Murray, 2006b).

In attempting to account for this aspect of emerging or ‘becoming’, often encountered in informal housing practices in less regulated contexts, Soaita and McKee (2019) expand the framework of housing pathways, by employing ‘home-assembling’ as an alternate notion of home-making that sheds light on the heterogeneous material, social and emotional components of housing (Soaita and McKee, 2019). Drawing on assemblage thinking (De Landa, 2006), they open up the concept of affordances introduced to housing studies by Clapham (2011) in order to locate the capacities and possibilities of housing in relation to the material properties and tenure rights it offers, as well as the potential destabilization of home-assemblages in connection to family conflicts. Following their argument, we contend that these capacities of housing pathways differ fundamentally due to variegated regulatory contexts and, in our case, due to discriminatory, homo/trans-phobic and precarious conditions LGBTQ+ people often experience.

Within this frame, we seek to contribute to debates concerning discrimination and negative treatment in the private housing sector by opening the discussion towards gender-based exclusion and, more specifically, exclusion based on tenants’ LGBTQ+ sexual identities. We contend that such modes of exclusion intersect with individual conditions of limited financial means (Haylen and Van den Broeck, 2016), while also relating to broader structural shifts in the economic and housing environments that render access to affordable housing difficult, especially for young people (Hoolachan et al., 2017). Accordingly, housing pathways may be dependent upon contingent relations of aspirations, values and socioeconomic processes and space/time availability and affordability of housing (Soaita and McKee, 2019). Therefore, in this view, home-making or home-assembling may be disrupted by ‘home-unmaking’ contingent factors, depending on access capacity to the material unit of housing, the properties of its individual embodied user and the sociospatial context that shapes and is being shaped by such process of home-making.

Subsequently, we aim to expand these debates on housing pathways, home-making, and the gendered dimensions of housing, through the under-investigated lens of LGBTQ+ domesticities. Beyond existing research on this topic in contexts such as the UK and the USA (e.g. Gorman-Murray 2006a; Valentine 1993; Hunter 2008; Adelman et al., 2006), in-depth studies on LGBTQ+ housing domesticities in Southern Europe remain limited, with only few notable exceptions (e.g. Carastathis, 2018; Geltis, 2019; Di Feliciantonio & Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou, 2020; Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou, 2021). As the process of coming-out in the context of heteronormative Southern European family regimes of home provision is also underexplored, it remains to be seen how housing pathways of LGBTQ+ people are impinged by either homo/trans-phobic reaction by families or supportive responses that maintain housing provision. The following section lays out the Greek context of housing, in relation to family welfare, social institutions and the barriers induced by the decade-long economic crisis, in order to proceed with the empirical analysis of the research.

The socio-cultural roots of exclusion in the Greek context

I. Family welfare

Greece is characterized by the welfare pattern of ‘familialism by default’, where ‘there are neither publicly provided alternatives to nor support for family care’ (Saraceno & Keck, 2010, 676). This is also evident in the extremely low coverage of residential provision and care services by the state. Arguably, the Greek welfare state has never been active enough to cover the needs of its citizens and neither supports with policies the families in their role as a welfare agent, thus forming a situation of unsupported familism (Naldini, 2005). Indeed, Greece is ranked in the lowest positions among the EU member states in relation to family support interventions (Kourachanis, 2018). To this day, there is no developed, cohesive social housing policy, and the state limits its provision for shelter to extreme cases of homelessness (Balabanidis et al., 2013). Housing policies in Greece mainly involve indirect economic indicators that aim to promote certain housing practices, especially the self-regulation of housing needs through the support of the family, with a focus on homeownership (Mantouvalou, 1985; Leontidou, 1990; Allen et al., 2004).

Moreover, the ‘strong family ties, emphasis on pensions, secure jobs during active life, high intra-family transfers in crucial phases of the life cycle’, and high percentages of homeownership constitute a rigid system in this country (Ferrera, 2010, 171). Hence, Greek families tend to draft strategic plans to support their members in their housing pathway with any available means, prioritizing the need to provide direct means for access to homeownership. As this is not always possible, alternative practices (e.g. covering part of housing costs) are employed, especially during, as well as in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Family in Greek culture is associated with home; these two concepts are substantially interrelated, as the home is where a family is formed and maintained (Mallett 2004). The family home is where individuals’ identities and collective family identities are expressed and continuously renegotiated through generations (Valentine et al.,2003). Inside the home, there is a profound naturalization of heteronormativity that accordingly imposes certain behaviours. In Greece, the family home is the base of the asymmetrical heteropatriarchal family, which nurtures certain heterosexual and gendered relations. Consequently, LGBTQ+ family members are sometimes compelled to suppress their non-normative sexuality and life plans as long as they are still dependent on their families. In other words, the contemporary heterosexual Greek family home may ‘exclude’ LGBTQ+ members because of dominant socio-sexual power relations (see also Valentine, 1993).

II. The orthodox Church and human rights/protection

Greece is one of the first-mover states in the European Union and as such is supposed to implement necessary modernized social reforms; however, domestic factors — especially political, economic, and religious ones — delay the policy reforms that the country has to undertake towards this goal (Ayoub, 2015). The Orthodox Church retains a great influence in Greece and, like the dominant political ideology, promotes the family as the core structure of society (Allen et al., 2004). Thus, other forms of family outside of the heteronormative model could harm this sensitive equilibrium of Greek welfare regime. According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association report (ILGA, 2017) about Greece, there have been incidents where the church has acted against the LGBTQ+ community’s rights, namely, against human rights. For instance, in June of 2016, Bishop Amvrosios of Kalavruta predicted that ‘within a few years, the way things are headed, normal, physiological people will run and hide whereas the abnormal will double and control with their heinous pride’ (ILGA, 2017, 111). Moreover, after the civil union was legislated, three religious leaders of the Greek Orthodox Church decided that extending civil partnerships for same-sex couples was unconstitutional and lodged it with the court. Concerning the legal framework, Greece provides protection only for ‘sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression’ with regard to employment and does not offer specific coverage for other forms of discrimination (ILGA, 2017, 109). Accordingly, LGBTQ+ individuals who face discrimination concerning housing are not protected.

III. Crisis violence

The global financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent austerity measures, re-organized housing and everyday life in Greece. The European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund dictated austerity measures that constituted the preconditions of the three bailout packages received by Greece during the crisis (Papadopoulos & Roumpakis, 2013). The austerity measures imposed deep cuts in total public expenditure, which impacted the households’ formation and the related housing strategies that families adopted in order to face the challenges (Naldini & Jurado, 2013; Pinto & Guerra, 2013; Serracant, 2015). Moreover, since 2012, Greece has had some of the highest unemployment rates among OECD countries at all educational levels. Usually, the country occupies the first or second worst position together with Spain in the percentage of unemployment of the total labour force and young unemployment in the EU (Eurostat, 2021).

Social services were weakened among the rest of the extensive adjustments to the Greek social protection system during the crisis. The aforementioned conditions, along with the lack of institutional policies concerning access to affordable housing and tenants’ protection, led to increased housing precarity that was only partially confronted by actors of the civic society such as family networks, NGOs and charitable organizations (Kourachanis, 2019). The Greek state only supervises these social interventions (Kourachanis, 2016) while the considerable pressures imposed on family welfare weaken its ability to protect its members, who are exposed to multiple social risks (Kourachanis, 2018).

Methodology

Our methodological approach combined a qualitative in-depth analysis of the housing practices of LGBTQ+ people in Athens, Greece in relation to family conflict and solidarity or support networks. In so doing, we employ the housing pathway notion (Clapham, 2005) as a methodological framework, acknowledging the merits it offers through the use of ethnographic or biographical methods to understand individual perceptions of social structures, the context and forms of practical consciousness, reasons for actions and choices, as well as the structural factors that influence such actions.

The research is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews, during which the respondents narrated their housing pathways, revealing disruptions in housing accessibility, displacement and dispossession, discrimination in access to housing based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity, as well as coping practices facilitated by support networks. We initially recruited interviewees through multiple contacts and then invited additional participants through snowballing. To procure research partners who could be interested in this study, we contacted LGBTQ+ political and social syndicates, activists and support groups. The 21 interviewees ranged from 20 to 60 years old, and self-identified as LGBTQ+ at the time of the interview. Among interviewees, 11 participants identified themselves as gay men, 5 as lesbians, 3 as queer, 1 as bisexual woman, 1 as trans woman, while three conveyed opinions also as members of LGBTQ+ support organizations (i.e. Red Umbrella, Colour Youth and informal solidarity networks).

The social background of the participants is wide-ranging in terms of socio-economic, educational and labor status. Following an intersectional approach, we consider the agency of class, gender identity, sexual orientation, educational background, and job occupation as constitutive of housing practices and not solely as demographic data. However, the analysis of class in this work is problematic due to a dissociation between class and material resources in the post-economic crisis context. Concerning ethical considerations, we retained strict confidentiality and anonymity of respondents’ views, by replacing personal identifiers with pseudonyms. Overall, our methodological approach prioritizes the decentering of dominant conceptualizations around narratives of gender, sexuality, and housing pathways. In this regard, we aimed to empirically ground our research in context-relevant and constructive terms for those involved as research partners. Thus, we acknowledge relational ethical commitments to both constantly negotiate our positionalities and establish reciprocity and solidarity with researched others. By negotiating our multiple positionalities — as ‘knowers’, insiders, and invited guests in research settings — we acknowledge the ways in which knowledge production may become entangled with power relations (Routledge and Derickson, 2015). Such an approach also provides crucial insights into the lifeworlds and embodied experiences of research participants, shedding light on the privileges that might be re-inscribed in the research process itself. Eventually, our approach reflects an engaged research practice that positions itself within the processes and milieus under study and explicitly on the side of dispossessed others.

LBGTQ + housing vulnerability: locating different dimensions, intersections of exclusion, and coping strategies

Family conflicts and their impact

The housing landscape in Greece has changed substantially over the last decade, rendering access to housing challenging for large parts of the urban population. The impact of the crisis on young people’s income and employment opportunities, along with the lack of housing policies and institutional support, makes young people an extremely vulnerable group concerning access to affordable housing. Greece has by far the largest share of people living in households spending 40 per cent or more of their income on housing (39.5 per cent in 2018), compared to an EU average of 9.6 per cent (Eurostat, 2018). At the same time, the proportion of young people (18 to 34 years old) living with their families is among the highest in Europe, accounting for 76.9 per cent of the total age group (Eurostat, 2021). Within this context, financial dependencies on more affluent family members render family responses to young LGBTQ+ people’s ‘coming out’ process crucial, playing a key role in their future housing, professional, and educational pathways. This condition also extends to people in their early 40 s. Indeed, the lack of family housing support leads inevitably to vulnerability and exposure to risk, further intensified due to underdeveloped housing provision policies (Kourachanis, 2018).

Young LGBTQ+ people, being dependent on their families, develop different strategies when it comes to revealing their sexuality and gender identity depending on their individual situation, as family support may be regulated by moral-heteronormative and religious barriers. Concerning our research participants, disclosure of sexual orientation or gender identity often led to disruptions and conflicts. In some cases, even when there were initially conflicts and disapproval, parents arrived after a period of time to the point of acceptance and they offered indirect or direct housing support to their children. For example, Liza, a 45-year-old lesbian woman who was displaced from her maternal home because of her sexual orientation, she received indirect support afterwards:

‘When I had to move out and then move in again, he (her stepfather) told me “You know, I kept this money and you can take them now that you need them”’.

This incident happened while she was not talking to her mother, so her stepfather tried to support her indirectly to overcome the impacts of the clash.

However, several respondents, especially those who grew up in homophobic or intolerant household environments, prefer not to disclose their sexuality/identity in order to avoid conflict and maintain family support even after they move out of the family house. Olga, a 42-year-old lesbian woman, noted,

‘This year, I want to start [repairing] one house in the village, for which I am pressuring them [the parents] to renovate it […], so I am thinking not to come out yet because they are going to disinherit me and not invest the money, so first fix the house [of the grandfather, in the mountains] and then this ancestor’s weight will go away [and I will come out]’.

Concerning LGBTQ+ people who choose (or are forced) to disclose their sexuality or gender identity in intolerant or abusive housing environments, this development often comes with tensions, such as verbal abuse, emotional blackmail, or even displacement and home-unmaking. As stressed by a respondent from Colour Youth Greece, an activist organization for LGBTQ+ rights,

‘It is common for people who come out to their parents that their first response in an attempt to ‘turn them straight’ would be to cut them off their social networks, including group tutoring outside school’.

Thus, families often consider LGBTQ+ identities as ‘negotiable’, putting pressure on LGBTQ+ subjectivities to ‘reconsider’. Furthermore, even if participants were not directly forced to leave the household, they chose to do so in order to escape from toxic family environments, as explained by Lisa, a 45-year-old lesbian woman:

‘Because of my sexual orientation, I encountered some… one really peculiar act of practice from my mother—blackmailing. Let’s say, it’s like saying ‘me or your girlfriend’. But because I was really bonded with my mother, I was a ‘mama’s girl’, she thought I would back down and stay with her, but I did not back down, and then I went [moved out of the family house], because all of this should be done really quickly in order to prove to my mother that this is me, I am like this, and I do not do it to disturb anyone or… and because it was a life decision for me to put my foot down about this matter’.

Following cases of displacement and cutting off financial support, participants faced increased vulnerability and precarity as well as limitations in terms of access to education. The latter is a major issue, considering that many of the participants were high school or university students during their coming out. Moreover, young people who grew up in rural areas paused or quit their education in order to relocate to metropolitan areas (especially Athens and Thessaloniki) in order to gain access to networking opportunities and support from LGBTQ+ communities:

‘Young LGBTQ+ people kicked out of their homes by their family may not be the most common response to coming out, yet it is the case much more often than we think it would be. So, in these cases, even though we are talking about underage people, survival issues come up front, undermining access to education’. (Colour Youth Athens)

Within this frame, even in cases where the participants were on a route towards finishing high school or completing university degrees, these options were undermined by the pursuit of independence and the immense need to secure an income.

Kostas, a 38-year-old gay man who on several occasions hosted young, displaced LGBTQ+ people, described similar incidents in which minors found themselves without any kind of support:

‘Another case concerned a trans girl who was living with her mother who was extremely abusive. An LGBTQ+ organization approached me and asked if we could take her until state services reach a decision concerning her future. Indeed, we took her in. There was this particularity that she was a minor and we [Kostas and his flat mates] had to undertake a parental role: food, pocket money, making sure she would not get into trouble. Our role involved much more than providing housing […]. It’s not always direct or violent displacement but the lack of the broader ability of a house to operate as a calm and safe environment, the socio-psychological role of the house’.

Overall, the key role of family bonds within Greek society reflects upon young LGBTQ+ people’s experiences of gender/sexual-based exclusions in the early stages of their lives. As the majority of participants experienced difficulties of varying degrees, even those who were not directly displaced, they prioritized financial independence. That choice (or, in many cases, this necessity) severely undermined educational opportunities while also rendering them vulnerable. On some occasions, such as people growing up in wealthy households, displacement takes the form of sudden class shifts rooted exclusively in sexuality-based exclusion from family networks.

Intersectionality and individual coping strategies

Drawing upon our participants’ stories, we find that the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from affordable housing cannot be approached as an isolated condition within the housing market. Instead, it is part of broader intersections of exclusionary conditions concerning education, labor, long-standing social discrimination and visibility issues that constantly feed each other:

‘It is more than obvious that exclusions are interrelated. Exclusion from education will lead to exclusion from the labour market, housing, etc. Additionally, housing displacement at an early age will have an impact on one’s access to education’. (Colour Youth Athens)

Among participants, trans women, people who were displaced at a very young age, and those who openly claim their visibility rights face the harshest forms of exclusion from both education and the labor market. According to Red Umbrella (a sex workers’ rights organization), trans women are rendered ‘unemployable’ and turn to sex work as the main source of income. Moreover, people along the whole LGBTQ+ spectrum struggle with homophobic and transphobic behaviors from employers:

‘For the trans community, especially during the previous decades, their lives were defined by their exclusion from the labor market. For most trans women, sex work was the only option, along with all the endangerment that this work entails, as it is a profession that involves exposure to huge amounts of violence’. (Red Umbrella Athens)

Within this exclusive labor landscape in Greece, LGBTQ+ people occasionally turn to businesses that cater for the community or are run by LGBTQ+ employers. However, the participants disclosed incidents of exploitation, even within the aforementioned spaces, which cannot always be classified as ‘safe-zones’. For instance, Iraklis, a 24-year-old queer man, shared the following experiences:

‘I worked during the summer for a boutique in XXX. In order to do so, I had to change my hairstyle—it was blue at the moment—and to take off my earrings […]. Gay bars in XXX want macho gay men. I have applied to many of them, and they won’t hire me because of the way I look [more feminine]. Moreover, one has to sleep with the boss, his friend, etc.’

The participants who were displaced at a young age often turned to temporary, informal, precarious and low-paid jobs, while also facing prolonged periods of unemployment. Fanis, a 28-year-old gay man, further elaborated on this:

‘I have been unemployed for three years. I had several shitty jobs because I quit university and I was considered unskilled in the labour market, so I could not find a stable, decent job. I worked at mini-markets, a pet shop. I distributed leaflets, a lot of them’.

Concerning the housing market, LGBTQ+ subjectivities often face exclusion regardless of their financial status. Due to the wide spread of homophobic and transphobic attitudes within Greek society, LGBTQ+ subjectivities very often come across exclusion explicitly based on their gender identity and sexuality, as further demonstrated by Iraklis:

‘Several LGBTQ+ people are excluded as potential tenants because of their identity, especially couples and transgender women. I have a friend [trans woman] who has been facing such issues despite the fact that she is wealthy and has a stable, well-paid job. In the neighbourhood I currently live [central Athens], I have faced physical attacks by neighbours, right-wing neighbours. They were throwing rocks at our windows. I told them so they know that faggots fight back!’

Within this context, LGBTQ+ subjectivities come up with coping strategies such as concealing their gender identity or the nature of their relationship with their partners. On several occasions, the participants said that presenting themselves as straight and stating that they are relatives or friends (in the case of couples) increased their chances of renting a place. Nevertheless, these ‘disguise’ strategies are not limited to housing access but extend to their everyday lives and routines in the face of oppression. The inability to make their sexuality or identities visible is stressed by Anastasia, a 57-year-old transgender woman:

‘Of course, I faced difficulties. How should I present myself, as a man or a woman, what should I wear, etc.? It is very common for trans women to present themselves as men in order to negotiate with landlords and be able to rent a place… [In the past] we used to exit buildings through the basements at night in our wigs, and in the morning… we disguised ourselves into something completely different!’

Consequently, the above reveals both a direct exclusion from access to housing, as a result of landlords’ homophobic and transphobic attitudes, and an indirect exclusion, as a result of intersectional discrimination originating in limited access to labour and income.

LGBTQ+ housing trajectories

In the context of financial and housing insecurity of LGBTQ+ people after leaving the family home, their pathways are substantially defined by the status of their relations with their family members. In the case of supportive family environments, participants received financial support or dwellings owned by the family. In contrast, participants who were violently displaced or who escaped from abusive family environments spent long periods of time struggling with housing deprivation. As a result, their housing pathways included frequent relocations and temporary housing arrangements. The following narrative by Michalis, a 28-year-old gay man, presents a housing pathway that reflects the pattern of constant relocations in pursuit of a home:

‘I left my family when I was 23. At first, I stayed with friends for a couple of months. Then moved to another friend for a month in a very small apartment with one bed. It was ok but stifling. I was constantly feeling that I am a burden to others; it was a major issue for me. Then I moved into an apartment with exclusively LGBTQ+ until I got a job. It took me very long to land a job. I always felt that I had to provide more to the house, but the lack of money was a problem. I made just enough for my food. I slept in the living room, constantly careful not to disturb others. Then moved into the storage room in the same house, a very small space without windows. Then I got a job and moved in with a friend. In the meantime, I met a boy… It is always helpful to have someone by your side. Yet it was challenging to be in a relationship under these circumstances […]. I stayed with him for a while but it was hard because his family did not approve of me, so I couldn’t stay long. Then we found a place together, moved again and then again to a new place with another person […]. Not having money was very stressful, as I was constantly thinking that I must not, under any circumstances, return to my previous status. It was very scary’.

Such trajectories raise major issues concerning experiences of housing deprivation, as they may strongly impact on ontological security and cause distress. First, the absolute lack of institutional alternatives for LGBTQ+ people that are facing the threat of homelessness was highlighted by LGBTQ+ organizations. They mentioned how people struggling with housing deprivation completely rely upon interpersonal or solidarity/mutual-aid networks in order to gain access to short-term accommodation. The same people are often excluded from the limited homeless shelters run by the Greek church, local authorities, and NGOs. Participants who approached relevant institutions either faced direct rejection because of their LGBTQ+ identity or were ‘off-the-record’ warned that their identity might be life endangering, even if they manage to get a place. In this context, LGBTQ+ organizations stressed the necessity of institutionally provided means to set up shelter-homes that could accommodate people who find themselves under the threat of homelessness. However, given the limited financial resources of both official and informal LGBTQ+ organizations and networks, such a development cannot take place without the support of the state or local authorities.

Ensuring relevant support raises the need to address legal issues that are entailed in hosting minors. Within informal networks, hosting minors can have major legal consequences; as a result, the most vulnerable among LGBTQ+ who are facing homelessness are those facing serious barriers in accessing accommodation. According to Kostas,

It is not easy [to host a minor] when you are not legally vested. It is hard to convince someone to host minors. We do it in secret in order that the police won’t find out. If the parents want to do so, they can call the cops on us; they will take the child and I will be unable to protect them.

The lack of institutional support renders LGBTQ+ individuals facing housing precarity or homelessness completely dependent upon interpersonal/family and informal networks in order to secure temporary accommodation. Consequently, the second issue related to pathways for young LGBTQ+ people struggling with housing deprivation concerns the increased vulnerability that comes with frequent dislocations and relocations. Due to the particular nature of hosting (mostly by friends, members of the community, and allies) and limited financial resources, participants had to relocate often towards more stable housing arrangements. Beyond the vulnerability that is associated with staying with complete strangers, frequent relocations pose difficulties in LGBTQ+ employment opportunities. Thus, housing and labour precariousness intersect with each other, creating a long-term condition of vulnerability. This brings us to another issue associated with housing deprivation, namely its psychological dimensions. During the interviews, ‘burden’ was the word the research participants most frequently used when describing their short-term accommodation experiences. Notwithstanding the host’s attitude, the participants found themselves struggling with their inability to reciprocate the hosts’ kindness, to provide something in return. This struggle, along with the constant feeling of intrusion in other people’s privacy and the subsequent need for discretion, gives shape to a psychologically challenging condition described by one of the participants as ‘feeling alone… belonging nowhere’, which may have enduring effects.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the housing pathways of the participants portray multiple nomadic experiences with constant dislocations and relocations across the metropolitan area of Athens. It is noted that, when provided with the opportunity to choose, interviewees mostly reside in central Athenian districts and not in more suburban ones. Concerning the criteria behind participants’ preferences, on the one hand, they relate to rent prices and their chances of gaining access to decent housing at an affordable price. On the other hand, they tend to reside in non-exclusively residential areas that ensure a certain degree of anonymity. Interestingly, numerous of the places in which participants resided were located in neighborhoods with high numbers of migrant populations. Given the fact that homophobic and transphobic attacks are not uncommon in Athens’ public spaces, Fanis’s narrative brings out a new dimension concerning this co-existence:

‘Here [near Victoria Square] it’s better. The reason why it’s better is kind of sad. It is because people here [referring to migrants] are so afraid for themselves that I have noticed something: they won’t even look you in the eyes. They don’t want to have any kind of engagement in order not to get in trouble. In this weird way, it creates a safe environment for LGBTQ+’.

Solidarity networks

In Greece, institutional (e.g. facilitated through state or local authorities, NGOs, and the broader third sector) efforts to tackle the multileveled discrimination experienced by LGBTQ+ subjectivities are extremely limited. Moreover, NGOs that provide support to members of the LGBTQ+ community are mostly located in Athens and are, thus, unable to assist members of the community in peripheral areas. It is also noted that, until very recently, issues related to gender were marginal concerning social movements’, as well as political parties’ and organisations’ of the Left agendas and repertoires. However, having as a turning point the murder of the LGBTQ+ activist Zack Kostopoulos on September 21, 2018, prefigurative social movements and organizations have been rapidly incorporating issues related to LGBTQ+ rights in their agendas and claims. During the last years, this trend has been further accelerated, in parallel with the strengthening of the Greek feminist movement, triggered by the wide concern in relation to the increase rates of femicides and gender-based violence.

In the absence of institutional means, LGBTQ+ people struggle with housing vulnerability and depend on interpersonal and solidarity networks in order to gain access to short-term accommodation. Often, interpersonal and solidarity networks co-exist and interchange in the housing pathways of LGBTQ+ subjectivities. Nevertheless, several factors provided the research participants with the opportunity to avoid turning to complete strangers for accommodation—the extent of support from family and interpersonal networks being most prominent, as Olga stressed,

‘The situation was the following. He [a friend] was staying there, but he stayed part-time as he was going back and forth abroad. So, he wanted a friend to take care of the house. Therefore, it was beneficial both for him and me because the price of rent was really cheap. Essentially just a formality. Nonetheless, as the crisis evolved, in order to survive, we rented (his room) on Airbnb. My [former] flat mate now stays in his parent’s home’.

However, young people or people moving to large urban centers from peripheral areas have limited interpersonal networks that would be able to provide them with support. Thus, they mostly reach out to LGBTQ+ organizations and informal networks. Since organizations do not have the appropriate infrastructure to accommodate people, informal networks facilitate the vast majority of relevant negotiations.

‘There are no institutional alternatives that specifically address the needs of the LGBTQ+ community. It depends on whether you are lucky enough or whether you have access to supportive networks. Networks play a crucial role […]. Usually social media is useful, either directly, meaning to find someone to host you, or indirectly, through the provision of advice and tips’. (Colour Youth Athens)

Solidarity networks operate on two interconnected levels: well-established interpersonal relations and social media groups. The former involves individualized strategies and information exchange around ‘tolerant’ landlords and ‘passing over’ an apartment when one moves out. In the latter, the role of digital infrastructure is crucial, providing accommodation seekers with access to larger support. As Iraklis noted, in some cases, grassroots political collectives may also provide housing alternatives:

‘For a period of time I stayed in an [anarchist] squat. Before going there, people tried to discourage me, saying ‘squatters are macho guys’ etc. Nevertheless, I went there, I stayed for six months and it was a nice experience, even though I was waking up each day under the fear of evacuation by the police. I lived with 15 more people. It was a co-living experience: we used to eat all together, we had guarding shifts in order to prevent an attack by the cops, we organized actions and events. This is where I first came in touch with the movement, with self-organization. I was the only LGBTQ+ person, I was painting my nails during assemblies [laughs]… I did not join clashes with the police, but I was doing other stuff’.

Digital solidarity networks are mostly active through social media, bringing together people in need of housing and people who are willing to host for short periods of time. Kostas explained how, on most occasions, contacts are mediated by LGBTQ+ organizations and individuals who circulate relevant requests:

‘It was made known that we live in a big house and are open to help. I also used to be part of one of the organizations. So, we were receiving several messages from members, such as ‘there is a person who needs to stay somewhere for a while. Is there anyone who can help?’ This is a very established practice. Social media groups are used by people asking, for example, ‘I was kicked out, can anyone help?’ So, if an individual request does not go through, organizations mediate and forward the request’.

Finally, all participants mentioned the development of a housing project specifically for LGBTQ+ people facing housing deprivation and homelessness as an essential need for the community. They envisaged it as a ‘dream for the community to create a shelter, a rainbow house. The people and the networks are there but not the funding’ (Red Umbrella Athens).

Conclusions

This article addressed LGBTQ+ housing vulnerability, displacement and dispossession, by looking into the underexplored Greek context. Our empirical analysis brought forward a diversity of housing trajectories that revealed how housing vulnerability is experienced as an enduring reality for most of our research participants. By analyzing participants’ narrations and experiences of ‘home-(un)making’ and ‘home-assembling’, we showed how housing vulnerability analytically intersected with multiple barriers in accessing labor, income precarity, especially for the youth, as well as long-standing discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in regard to their gender identity and/or sexual orientation. Unpacking the different dimensions of the notion of housing pathways, we brought forward the role of the family in providing support while, at the same time, reproducing homo/transphobic imaginaries, coping strategies LGBTQ+ subjectivities pursue via informal solidarity networks that offer makeshift temporary housing support, as well as a resounding lack in housing policy intervention.

Through these, we contributed to housing studies debates a view of housing pathways that problematizes the original notion, by locating and identifying the disruptions induced on such pathways at the intersecting oppressive roles of social institutions, such as the family and the Church of Greece. Moreover, we offered insights into how other structural or contextual factors, such as the economic crisis and its deep impact on unemployment and diminished housing provision, as well as the historically weak welfare state created increased risks for LGBTQ+ subjectivities. By employing an intersectional lens on the ‘housing pathway’ approach, we suggested that housing vulnerability, displacement and dispossession concerning LBGTQ + people are co-constituted with labor precarity, barriers to accessing education, as well as established norms and values of social institutions. Thus, in our view, the ‘housing pathways’ of most of our participants did not follow a linear or ordered sequence, rather they were repetitively disrupted, ‘un-made’ and ‘re-made’ or ‘re-assembled’, through contingent temporalities and contextual factors that created the conditions for processes of ‘home-unmaking’ and ‘home-assembling’. In regard to the latter, thinking of ‘home-assembling’ proved useful in identifying the different means, materialities, emotions, informalities and solidaristic relations built in relation to supportive networks, which, however, fragile, revealed a process of constant ‘home re-making’ by participants, who were forced to re-negotiate their housing experience on an informal and precarious basis.

That said, alongside our participants’ views, we acknowledge the limits to informality and the fallacy of romanticizing precarity vis-à-vis, more long-lasting, comprehensive housing provision and relevant policy, which increasingly becomes a key necessity especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Along these lines, future research might provide insights into suitable policy that would accommodate the demands for housing accessibility by the LGBTQ+ community in Greece, by considering the intersecting discriminatory and exclusionary tendencies identified through this article, as well as specific geographical traits of housing vulnerability in Athens and beyond. These would aim to inform policy interventions aiming to counteract the deeply problematic or non-existent housing policy in place and strengthen the demands and stance of LGBTQ+ activism and movements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dimitris Pettas

Dimitris Pettas is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning, Technical University of Berlin. His research interests include the study of: the social production of public space, the development of platform economy and its impact on urban environment, the role of power relations and agency in modes of urban governance, the landscape of social and solidarity economy networks and the urban commons.

Athina Arampatzi

Athina Arampatzi (PhD, University of Leeds, UK) is a Greek State Scholarships (IKY-NTUA) Postdoctoral Fellow. Her expertise involves the fields of comparative urban politics, governance and social movements, while her recent research focuses on alternative economies, social innovation and urban commons. Athina has published in internationally accredited academic journals, such as Urban Studies, Environment and Planning A and Political Geography.

Myrto Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou

Myrto Dagkouli-Kyriakoglou is a postdoc researcher at the Institute for Urban Research, Malmo University. She is interested in the relation between gender, housing practices, welfare state and culture. She received her PhD from Gran Sasso Science Institute where she focused on the interconnections of family housing support with gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and austerity in Greece. At Malmö University she explores the impact of short-term rental activity in the welfare and housing regimes of Greece and Sweden.