Executive summary

• Author: Isabel Baptista - Eric Marlier
• Pages: 12-17

National strategies to fight home lessness and housing exclusion Synthesis Report

12

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The development of integrated strategic approaches to homelessness and housing exclusion (HHE)

is key to achieving the necessary shift towards rights-based solutions, to ending HHE and to

successfully delivering on Principle 19 of the European Pillar of Social Rights. While progress is

being achieved, through the emergence of innovative dynamics in policy making and a growing

convergence towards adopting strategic approaches to HHE, preventing and tackling this

phenomenon remains a significant challenge within Europe.

Based on in-depth national contributions prepared by the 35 Country Teams of the European Social

Policy Network (ESPN), this Synthesis Report outlines the following ten key findings.

1. There are both consistencies and variations regarding the way in which

homelessness is defined across Europe.

Two thirds of ESPN Country Teams report the existence of some kind of “official” and/or

“recognised” definition of homelessness in their countries. These formal definitions, however,

do not necessarily entail any legal and/or policy obligation concerning the provision of

accommodation or other kind of support; they rather imply recognition of the phenomenon.

The use of the ETHOS5-Light typology, as a reference fram ework for reporting on the categories

of people defined as homeless in the 35 “ESPN countries”, has proved to be particularly useful

for addressing comparability challenges.

Overall, people sleeping rough, staying in emergency/temporary accommodation services, and

those living in inadequate living spaces or in places which cannot be considered “regular

housing units” are the most common references used in existing official definitions across

Europe.

A comparison between the presence/absence of the various living situations encompassed by

the six ETHOS-Light operational categories among the 35 countries reveals a clear trend: the

more visible the HHE situation (e.g. rough sleeping, living in emergency shelters), the higher the

probability of that condition being defined as homelessness. In fact, people living rough are

almost everywhere defined as being homeless, the only exception being Kosovo6. On the other

hand, only 14 countries include “people living temporarily with family and friends, due to lack

of housing” in their homelessness definition and, out of these, only four are actually able to

provide data on the extent of this phenomenon.

2. Currently it is not possible to determine the real extent of homelessness in Europe.

The availability and nature of data on the extent of homelessness in Europe vary widely among

the 35 ESPN countries. In some countries, there are national, regional or even city-level

statistics, while in others only estimates of the level of homelessness are available.

Additionally, the figures provided are based on diverse definitions of homelessness, and diverse

living situations are therefore covered by those figures in the different countries.

It is, therefore, not possible to provide an overall figure on the number of homeless people in

the 35 countries. Rather, we can give the existing statistics and/or estimates available in each

country, on the different living situations covered by ETHOS-Light.

The availability and variability of data-related challenges can be clearly illustrated by the

figures reported by ESPN national experts on the one category – people living rough – which is

5 ETHOS is the “European Typology on Homelessness and Housing Exclusion”.

6 (*) This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on

the Kosovo Declaration of Independence