In May 2016, after the EU-Turkey agreement designed to close off mass immigration to Europe, a group of 120 migrants accompanied by volunteers stormed the well-known City Plaza hotel in Athens. The hotel was vacant, its owners having gone bankrupt. Hundreds of rooms were lying empty while refugees suffered in camps far from the city.

The refugees set up shop there, and – despite government threats to cut off the water and electricity – have remained ever since. The hotel is a cacophony of noise. The sounds of small children shrieking waft through the reception area. Staccato bursts of Arabic, Urdu, Persian and English fill the room. The walls are adorned with posters. A blue sign with “City Plaza” written downwards on either sign flanks a message: Solidarity, together, resistance, unity, giving, getting, life, equality. The words written underneath each other their first letters highlighted in pink spell out “struggle”.

City Plaza is an oasis for refugees amid the chaos and misery in which so many find themselves in Greece

One floor up is the dining room. Tables and chairs are sprawled across a wide space, with yet more posters adorning the walls. Photos of the many refugees – mostly children – that have passed through cover the scene. Veiled women tap into their smartphones or huddle in groups talking and laughing. A child’s drawing is taped to a pillar. “Unicorns against borders,” it exclaims.

Next door is the bar. Tables are covered with backgammon sets as refugees play among tendrils of smoke that rise from shisha and cigarettes. A banner hung on the wall reads: “We rise against the criminal system of fortress Europe.”

Nasim Lomani is a key figure in the hotel. An Afghan, he has been in Greece for 17 years. He was one of the group that originally occupied the hotel. He rejects the term “volunteer” referring instead to himself and the other helpers as “solidarians”. The City Plaza, he says, houses 350 refugees from 16 different countries, and 50 solidarians.

The hotel, he continues, is more than just a home: it is, firstly, a political message. “It is counter-example to the camps,” he says. “It shows an alternative to how refugees should be housed. Not in the middle of nowhere, but in the city, with access to social services. One third of the population here are children and they are able to access schools. People should live in houses and buildings, not in camps and containers far from cities.

“So we occupied the hotel partly as a demand to the government to house refugees properly – especially as there are so many empty houses around Athens. We also wanted to create a space to fight against EU policies of detention, deportation and general mistreatment of migrants, and to fight against the labelling of them.”

Critically, he feels the hotel is a standing rebuttal to what he perceives is a deliberate government policy of mistreating refugees: “In the camps there is no access to edible food, no access to water, no showers and no privacy,” he says. “We provide all this to show that what they [the government] do is not out of compulsion, but out of choice – to punish refugees to set an example so that more won’t come.”

The hotel’s second purpose, beyond a sanctuary, is to empower refugees. Stuck in camps, many of the most educated and skilled see their talents lie dormant and wasted. Not here. Professional chefs from Syria and Iraq work in shifts to cook the food for the set mealtimes around which the day is based: 8am, 2pm and 8pm, every single day. Doctors practise their trade, giving checkups and caring for the sick; those with good English skills act as translators. City Plaza shows that, far from being a burden, refugees have much to contribute – if only they are given the chance.

Dinner that evening is hamburgers with French fries and a spicy sauce. All the meat is halal. The hotel is filled with life. Three solidiarians walk up the stairs carrying crates filled with children’s clothes. A Middle Eastern man in a Manchester United top blows smoke rings contentedly into the ether. But amid the bustle it is clear that everything works like clockwork. Committees decide everything from the catering to who gets housed.

Alcohol and drugs are banned. The threat from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, notorious for attacking refugees, has also been factored in. The hotel has significant security. So far, no one from Golden Dawn has dared come.

City Plaza is an oasis for refugees amid the chaos and misery in which so many find themselves in Greece. It offers an alternative model to the treatment of refugees. All across Europe, oceans of housing lie empty. City Plaza shows how Europe can help refugees to help themselves. We must take heed – and do so fast. Until we do, too many will suffer unnecessarily – and, in their eyes, unforgivably.

• David Patrikarakos is an author, academic and journalist