A/HRC/25/50/Add.1 homeless” are relatively well-educated who have found themselves in this situation owing to the financial difficulties occasioned by loss of employment and benefits. 77. As part of the fiscal consolidation, the Workers’ Housing Organization, the only major institution providing housing benefits, was abolished in February 2012 and its competences transferred to the Manpower Employment Organization. The Workers’ Housing Organization had provided, inter alia, a rental subsidy to nearly 120,000 households and housing benefits for non-insured elderly persons.79 78. At the same time, reductions in social service budgets have severely affected the ability of support services to provide assistance to the homeless at a time when they were already struggling to meet the increasing demand. For example, in November 2010, 61 of the 85 staff members at the City of Athens Homeless Foundation were laid off, greatly reducing the services that could be provided.80 79. In 2009, the Government took measures to protect low- and middle-income homeowners unable to service their mortgages from bank foreclosures. To this end, the Government imposed a ban on banks from repossessing primary residences worth up to €200,000. The Independent Expert understands, however, that the State’s international lenders have pressed the Government to end the ban. He calls upon these lenders to avoid prescribing policy actions that may undermine Greece’s international human rights obligations, including the right to adequate housing. 80. The Independent Expert shares the concern expressed by the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context that the phasing out of housing subsidies, changes to the legal protection against evictions and the emergency property tax have had a detrimental impact on the realization of the right to adequate housing for the poorest and most marginalized segments of society.81 He calls upon the Greek authorities to introduce a comprehensive means-tested housing benefit targeted at the poor and their families, to close the social protection gap in the area of housing exacerbated by the dissolution of the Workers’ Housing Organization. It should be noted that housing, like employment, is an important guarantor of human dignity. F. Poverty and social exclusion 81. Although Greece already had the highest poverty rate in the euro zone prior to 2009, the austerity measures, particularly job redundancies and cuts to wages and benefits, have pushed even more people into poverty. Approximately 11 per cent of the population is living in extreme poverty.82 These poverty levels have contributed to increasing inequality and social exclusion. 82. According to a study by the Athens University of Economics and Business and University of Essex, the relative poverty rate (namely, the percentage of persons having less than 60 per cent of the median income at their disposal) increased from 20 per cent in 2009 79 80 81 82 20 See A/HRC/23/51, communication GRC 1/2013 and reply of the Government of Greece dated 16 April 2013. Nicole Fondeville and Terry Ward, “Homelessness during the crisis”, research note 8/2011, European Commission - Directorate- General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, November 2011, p. 14. See https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/23rd/public_-_AL_Greece_19.02.13_(1.2013).pdf. See Jubilee Debt Campaign, Life and debt (see footnote 15), p. 12.