In Europe, which has had wrenching debates over whether and how to accommodate refugees and migrants—more than 2.5 million applied for asylum in the EU in 2015 and 2016—the City Plaza model is a rare one that does not appear destined to provide a template across the continent. In most cases, refugees and migrants who reach Europe are deported or indefinitely detained in camps, some of which operate more like prisons by severely restricting movement. A minority will be accommodated—where the political will exists to do so—along the lines of the resettlement model in Germany.

But in Greece, which as a first point of entry for many migrants has borne a disproportionate share of the housing challenge amid economic malaise, City Plaza serves as a home while making a political point. Olga Lafazani, a Greek academic and one of the founding members of the collective, says it’s not just about finding a more humane response to the refugee crisis. “Our idea was not to make a thousand City Plazas,” she said with a laugh. The squat, she explained, has an expansive definition of the term “refugee” that includes migrants fleeing any war, political persecution, extreme poverty, and environmental devastation; it’s a rejection of the legal distinction that distinguishes between different kinds of need for migration. City Plaza residents are either waiting for formal resettlement after having had their asylum applications approved or people who have managed to escape the camps. Coming in search of basics like shelter and food, they are also welcomed with private bedrooms, bathrooms, and balconies.

Lafazani characterized City Plaza as an “antagonistic political example” meant to shame both the state and the NGOs. “If we can do it without institutional funding, without any kind of resources from the state or from the NGOs, without any of us being employed here, just with people who offer their time—no specialists—then the fact that the NGOs and the state are not doing [it proves] they choose to have the camps.”

Since June 2015, an estimated $803 million in humanitarian aid has poured into Greece for hosting 60,000 refugees and migrants, making it the “most expensive humanitarian response in history” when broken down to cost per beneficiary. Greece was a corridor for those en route to wealthier European countries until March 2016, when a deal reached between the EU and Turkey, as well as the closing of Greece’s northern border, trapped 60,000 refugees and migrants in the country. The EU-Turkey deal was intended as a way to address the flow of arrivals into the EU. Turkey agreed to take back those who had traveled from Turkey to Greece but were not granted asylum; in exchange, the EU would step up its resettlement of Syrians coming from Turkey, ease visa restrictions for Turkish citizens in the EU, and pay billions in aid to Turkey and Greece. In practice, resettlement has not kept pace and conditions in the refugee camps have deteriorated. Ten days after the deal was made, Greece’s right-wing Minister of National Defense, Panos Kammenos, received an annually recurring $74 million for his defense budget, from the funds the Greek government received from the EU. Detention camps, guarded by soldiers and police and known as “hotspots,” were up and running within two weeks.