.....important to keep people at refugee status. Their own government does not care about these people but use them as pawns in the political stage....A list of refugees still waiting for housing...With he rich "RoC" standing tall in EU stakes 
Homeless Greek Cypriot refugee says no option but to squat
By Jacqueline Theodoulou
A HOMELESS Greek Cypriot refugee living in dire straits has decided to squat in an abandoned house in Limassol after a protest at the Presidential Palace yesterday got him nowhere.
Stelios Hadjihambis, who is estranged from the mother of his two children, stood outside the Presidential Palace holding his toddler daughter all morning yesterday, with a placard saying he was a homeless refugee in desperate need of help from the state.
Hadjihambis’ application for housing at a refugee estate has been approved, but he has been on the waiting list for the past six months and in the meantime has no where to go.
At a loss as to what he should do he spends the days taking his daughters, aged two and nine, to the park, and around Limassol. He decided to break into a refugee house that has been abandoned for months and stay there with his daughters until something was done.
“I want the police to come here,” he said when it was pointed out that he could get into trouble with the law. “I want them to come here and see the desperate situation we are in. I have nowhere to go. Nowhere.”
He added: “At this moment I am homeless and I have two children who stay with me in the evenings. I have nowhere to go. I have been approved by the government to live in a refugee estate, but they keep telling me that there are no homes for me. But I know that there are.”
But according to Valentina Loizidou at the Presidential Palace, Hadjihambis isn’t the only one with the same problems. There is apparently a long waiting list for refugees who have been approved for housing and this is because over the past years, few new estates were constructed, which has led to this build up of problems.
“Mr Hadjihambis visited us before on October 27, when he arrived at the Presidential Palace with his suitcase saying he was a homeless refugee,” Loizidou said. “I accepted him in my office where he told me he was a refugee and in desperate need for somewhere to stay.”
She added: “He said he was divorced with two children so I contacted the Social Welfare Services’ Department for Refugees, who told me that Mr Hadjihambis had applied for housing on November 6, 2006. His application had been rejected because at the time, he was engaged to another lady, with whom he was living and who had already received funding from welfare to help her rent a flat.”
According to Loizidou, when he split from his fiancée, he reapplied in August 2008. “He visited us again on November 27 and I contacted the Welfare Services, who said his application was under examination. I told him that as he was now alone, his application would be examined as such. At the same time, I told him to go to the Welfare Office in Limassol, where the officer there said she would be expecting him to discuss helping him find funding to at least rent somewhere. So he left and returned today.”
Loizidou said she had already told him that whenever he needed help, he could call her.
“But arriving at the Presidential Palace with a piquet and his small chid can’t help solve this problem. I called him on his mobile and told him to return to Limassol, until we can book an appointment to see him,” she said.
Loizidou confirmed that Hadjihambis’ application had been approved. “The problem is there are no estates left for him at the moment. He is on a waiting list like so many other refugees. The main issue is, over the past years, refugee estates weren’t being constructed on a systematic basis. President Demetris Christofias and the Interior Minister are working intensively to improve the situation, but it can’t happen overnight,” she said.
“We told him this, but he reacted badly. We told him that this can’t solve anything; other people have problems too and the Presidential Palace is willing to help.
I understand he is in a desperate situation. But he truly isn’t alone. Many people, young couples and other refugees are experiencing similar problems.”
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009
