Activists Took Over This Abandoned Athens Hotel...and Gave it to Refugees

After months of subsisting in overcrowded camps, migrants turned an empty building in the Greek capital into a remarkable experiment in self-managed living.

In April 2016, an abandoned hotel in Athens, Greece, was transformed into housing for four hundred refugees from Syrian, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. The residents themselves help run the hotel – including cooking communal meals, organizing childcare and running language classes – creating a new model of living as the refugees start to rebuild their lives in Europe.