In Athens, calls to a suicide help line have doubled.

HIS FACE CONTORTED with anguish, Anargyros D. recounted how he had lost everything in the aftermath of the Greek economic collapse - the food-processing factory founded by his father 30 years ago, his house, his car, his Rolex, his pride and now, he said, his will to live.

“Many times I have thought of taking my father’s car and driving it into a wall,” he said.

Hunched over and shaking, he sat recently in the office of Klimaka, a social services organization here that helps the swelling numbers of homeless and depressed Greek professionals who have lost their jobs and their dignity.

“We were the people in Greece who helped others,” he said. “Now we are asking for help.”

It has been one year since Greece avoided bankruptcy when Europe and the International Monetary Fund provided a 110 billion euro ($155 billion) bailout. The despair of Greeks like Anargyros D. reflects a level of suffering deeper than anyone here had anticipated.

Economists are predicting a 4 percent contraction in gross domestic product this year. Cement production is down 60 percent since 2006. Steel production has fallen, in some cases more than 80 percent in the last two years. Analysts say that close to 250,000 private sector jobs will have been lost by the end of the year, pushing the unemployment rate above 15 percent.

With headlines shouting of credit rating downgrades, panicky Greeks are taking their money from banks. Greece lost 40 billion euros of deposits last year, and bankers say withdrawals have increased recently.

These struggles have again made Greece an urgent matter for the 17-nation euro zone, whose finance ministers met May 16 to discuss the debt crisis. On the table was whether Greece would be granted another round of loans of as much as 60 billion euros, and what further budget cuts would be required in return.

European finance ministers demanded that Greece start a privatization program before it gets further help.

The resignation on May 18 of Dominique Strauss- Kahn, the head of the I.M.F., after his arrest on charges related to sexual assault could create new uncertainty about a push for more severe austerity.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn generally favored a less onerous approach, it is possible that tougher conditions preferred by Germany will now be imposed.

But while the debate over how to fix the Greek economy has played out in public, the ways in which this slump is tearing at the country’s social fabric are less well known.

Social workers and municipal officials in Athens report a 25 percent increase in homelessness. At the main food kitchen in Athens, 3,500 people a day show up, up from about 100 a day 10 years ago.

The average age of those who show up is now 47, down from 60 two years ago, adding to evidence that those who are suffering now are former professionals.

The unemployment rate for men 30 to 60 years old has spiked to 10 percent from 4 percent since the crisis began in 2008.

Aris Violatzis, Anargyros D’s counselor at Klimaka, says calls to its suicide help line have risen to 30 a day, twice the number two years ago.

“We cannot imagine this,” Mr. Violatzis said. “We were once the 29thrichest country in the world. This is a nation in deep emotional shock.”

Evidence of that shock has been abundant in Athens.

On a recent Monday, a nicely dressed middle-aged woman sifted through the garbage cans outside fivestar hotels.

At dusk, riot police fired tear gas at rock-throwing protesters.

Laid-off construction workers are living in abandoned villas. A laidoff security guard said he had spent the last year sleeping in his battered hatchback.

And a chef trained in the premier cooking school in Athens slept on park benches for 18 months after his restaurant job was eliminated. A homeless charity recently gave him shelter.

The Greek government does not officially recognize the homeless as a social category in need of assistance, says Anta Alamanu, who runs a privately financed shelter for Klimaka, the social services group, so there are no government-supported homeless shelters.

When Kostas DeLazaris, 47, lost his tourism job on Corfu in 2007, he joined a construction firm in Athens, only to lose that job 10 months ago as the building industry ground to a halt. Now he sleeps on the floor in an abandoned house, along with two Greek women and a family of Bangladeshi immigrants.

“I feel betrayed,” he said, his voice rising in anger angrily.

“I paid my dues. I was part of the masses, and now I am on the streets.”

He snorts at the idea of a new deal with Europe. “There will be an earthquake instead and blood will be spilt,” he said.

Indeed, some analysts argue that a social flare-up is in the making, fueled by the divide between the hardhit private sector and a public work force of about one million that so far has not experienced significant job losses.

“This is an explosive situation, and there could well be violence,” said Stefanos Manos, a former economy minister. “Especially as those who lost their jobs were earning 50 percent less than those who kept them.”

There is mounting criticism that Prime Minister George A. Papandreou, after a burst of changes last year, has lost his nerve. A plan to raise 50 billion euros by 2015 by privatizing the publicly owned power and train companies has been a bitter disappointment.

Those companies, home to powerful unions that protect what some view as thousands of excess workers, remain largely untouched by reforms.

Mr. Papandreou, has opened up some closed professions and reformed the country’s pension and retirement systems, and many Greeks support him.

But critics say he may be avoiding difficult choices in the belief that Greece will be saved by a fresh European bailout.

But whether that aid would help lift Anargyros D. out of his despondency is unclear. At age 41, he lives off his father’s monthly pension of 962 euros, which is down from 1,500 euros a year ago.

“Everything was coming up roses,” he said. “Then the banks took it all away from us.”

With the jobless rate nearing 15 percent, some fear Greece is on the brink of violence. A food charity in Athens.

More professionals in Greece are losing their jobs. Kostas DeLazaris, center left, at Klimaka, a charity in Athens that supports the homeless. Above, free food being offered at Klimaka.


By LANDON THOMAS Jr.