Stockholm (NordSIP) – According to the “Tenth Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe” report published by the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), homelessness and the risk of homelessness are evolving in concerning ways in Europe.
The report attributes the continued issue of homelessness to a lack of affordable housing, cuts in social welfare programs, and increasing housing costs that disproportionately affect low-income renters. The report argues that the rise of populist and far-right parties in several Member States has further exacerbated the problem, leading to rollbacks in social policies and reduced support for civil society organisations.
“The goal should be to meet the needs of households unable to secure housing because their resources are insufficient, with special attention given to the poorest, who are most immediately and severely affected, and whose circumstances remain deeply concerning. Homelessness continues to rise in most European countries, reflecting Member States’ persistent failure to make housing an effective right and demanding firm political responses, notably to ensure that no one sleeps rough,” Freek Spinnewijn, Director of FEANTSA commented.
Beyond the fact that there are alarming trends in homelessness, not least in the Nordics where homelessness is low but trending upwards, the report also highlights various available data sources and the methodological challenges to the estimation of homelessness.
Methodological Challenges and Limitations
Although in the past FEANTSA has been willing to publish a point estimate of homelessness across Europe, it decided not to do so this year. “We deliberately did not produce an updated Europe-wide estimate of homelessness this year. The aim of the estimates in previous editions was to provide an order of magnitude, but we found that the available data and methods are not reliable enough to produce precise annual updates,” says Margaux Charbonnier, Project Officer at FEANTSA.
Since FEANTSA collects the latest national estimates of homelessness, it is in principle possible to aggregate them. However, they refer to different years, and use different methodologies, so that such an exercise would be methodologically flawed, inaccurate and possibly misleading.
Available national estimates can as easily refer to information dating back to 2021, 2022, 2023 or 2024. Moreover, methodologies vary. Some countries, like France, measure homelessness via a headcount of people in homeless shelters, which ignores those unhoused who lack access to even those facilities. Others, like Denmark, only count people in contact with social services, thus excluding people without rights who do not receive any support.
Instead, FEANTSA’s report focuses on national developments and two recent data collection initiatives carried out at the EU level: the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and its 2023 survey on housing conditions, and the 2021 population and housing census conducted in each Member State. However, even these initiatives are not without their issues. “Instead of producing our own point estimate, this year’s report focuses on new European data sources that shed fresh light on homelessness, notably the ad hoc EU-SILC module updated in 2023,” Charbonnier explains.
These data sources should be further contextualised in light of FEANTSA’s own European Typology of Homelessness and housing exclusion (ETHOS), which attempts to cover all living situations which amount to forms of homelessness across Europe, including (i) People living rough, (ii) People in emergency accommodation, (iii) People living in accommodation for the homeless, (iv) People living in institutions, (v) People living in non-conventional dwellings due to lack of housing and (vi) Homeless people living temporarily in conventional housing with family and friends (due to lack of housing).
Worrying Trends in Nordic Homelessness
The report highlights worrying trends in two Nordic countries. In Finland, budget cuts led to a rise in homelessness for the first time in over a decade. “Finland recorded, for the first time in over a decade, a rise in the number of homeless people. On 15 November, 3,806 homeless people were counted, representing an increase of 11% on 2023.18 Of these, 18% were sleeping rough or in emergency accommodation, 10% were in homeless shelters, 10% were living in an institution due to lack of housing, and 62% were staying temporarily with friends or family,” the report explains.
A similar trend was also observed in Denmark. “In 2024, Denmark counted 5,989 homeless people, marking an increase of 3% on 2022, and an increase of 20% on 2009.19 Of these, 503 were forced to sleep in public spaces (8%), 317 were staying in night shelters (5%) and 2,721 were staying in hotels, homeless hostels or transitional housing (45%). The survey also covered people who, due to lack of a housing solution, were staying in institutional settings (184 people or 3%) or with third parties (1,447 people or 24%) between 5 and 11 February 2024. Finally, added to this were 382 people who were in situations outside of those defined in the survey’s classification (6%) and 289 people whose precise living conditions were unknown (5%),” the publication reports.
How Many have Experienced Homelessness?
Looking at EU-wide attempts to harmonise data collection, the 2023 EU-SILC included a wider survey on housing conditions. This new module was introduced in response to the 2018 EU-SILC, which revealed that 4% of respondents had experienced homelessness in their lifetime, mainly related to a relationship or family breakdown. However, the EU-SILC figures are tantamount to a cumulative measure of those affected by some form of homelessness, rather than a point estimate of those who experienced it at some point during the previous year.
The 2023 EU-SILC reports that 4.9% of the population in Europe had experienced homelessness at some point in their life. The analysis shows that having experienced of homelessness during one’s life is significantly more common among people currently at risk of poverty or social exclusion, with a rate of 8.5%, compared to 3.9% for those not currently at risk. Of these, the vast majority (76%) fit into the ETHOS 6 category of having to stay with friends and family.
The Nordics diverge substantially from the EU averages. Of all the Nordic countries, Norway reported the least share of the population having experienced homelessness, at 7.2%. In Sweden, 9.1% of the population reported experiencing homelessness. The gender disparity was stark, with 9.5% of men reporting the issue, while it only affected 8.6% of women. In Denmark, 9.3% of the population reported having experienced homelessness. Gender disparities were less strong than in Sweden, although Danish women (9.5%) suffered from this issue more than men (9.4%). The worst Nordic country in the survey was Finland, which was only second to Cyprus. 10.8% of Finns reported having experienced homelessness at some point, with it affecting men (11.2%) more so than women (10.3%).
“These figures are particularly important because they challenge the idea that homelessness is a marginal phenomenon,” Charbonnier argues.
Problems With the Censuses
If we were to use the 2021 Census data, European homelessness would stand at 1.187 million people. However, as was the case with the sum of national estimates, this number should not be considered as a good measure due to the divergence in data quality and collection methods across the different countries covered. The report provides some important examples of these problems and how they materialise in the Nordics, which make this point evident.
In Finland, the 65,088 people categorised as ‘living in other types of dwellings’ include not just the 4,000 homeless people that would accurately fit into this category, but also those living in holiday homes, second homes, and institutions, for whom their situation was not clarified in the official register, according to FEANTSA. The report also noted that Eurostat did not count anyone in the category ‘people living in another type of housing and homeless people’ in Sweden, while the official number of homeless people in 2023 stood at 27,383, according to Sweden’s social department Socialstyrelsen.
“Many limitations still exist, in particular the confusion between homeless people and individuals living in an ‘other type of dwelling’ for the 2021 census, as well as the exclusion of people living in non-conventional dwellings for the EU-SILC ad hoc module. Furthermore, some countries seem to expend little effort on the quality and precision of the data in their contribution to the census, despite the obligation to include homeless people therein,” the report warns.
