Mentally ill next door

A story for the mentally ill people who live next door:
Once upon a time they were institutionalized, they were given electroconvulsive and they were being drugged. Nowadays the state is trying to deinstitutionalize them and reintegrate them into society. Following the European Union’s direction 815/84, when they are not considered dangerous to the society and to themselves, they have every right to live among us. Some of them are living next door, and some are sleeping in the streets – if they are homeless. They wander around with a body marked by the hardship they are going through, and if someday, society stops to treat them with disdain, it will signify a progress in its own morality.
This reportage describes daily life moments of some Athenians who carry the signs of mental disturbance.
Text: © Giorgos Xepapadakos.
Photographs: © Maro Kouri