Counting the homeless – setting the scene for improved policymaking

Newsletter 2009-4

Publication date : 2010-01-19

Homelessness is a complex problem but solutions are possible. However, managing – and eventually putting an end to – homelessness requires a much deeper understanding of the extent of the phenomenon and of its root causes.

Currently, far too little accurate information is available and this hinders the development of effective strategies. Some EU countries are still at the very early stages of collecting information, making it virtually impossible to compare homelessness across the EU. The fact that legal definitions of homelessness and housing exclusion do not exist everywhere or are not consistent further complicates the issue.

The Peer Review hosted by the City of Vienna and Austria’s Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection on 12-13 November 2009 therefore sought to share information on existing data-collection instruments, with a view to improving the planning of assistance to the homeless.

At the same time, the host country wanted to explore the reasons behind the ongoing rise in homelessness in its country despite its significant efforts to increase the number and quality of places for homeless people in recent years.

Indeed, Vienna, with its stock of 220,000 social dwellings for a population of 1.7 million, has become the European city with the largest social housing sector. The range of alternatives available to the homeless has also become wider, providing them with outpatient facilities, such as day-care centres, and various forms of inpatient accommodation, including ‘sociallysupported accommodation’ in the form of supervised flats for people no longer in a position to live on their own.

Lessons learned

One of the prime challenges in addressing homelessness is that responsibility for housing policy is often devolved to the regional or municipal level, leading to different policies and approaches and a lack of national coordination. Whereas case management often takes place locally, it is nevertheless essential to have centralised data coordination and analysis systems to support policy- making. This could also be outsourced to university research departments.

The Review further underscored the need to understand which information is required before developing mechanisms to acquire it. For this, more research is needed with regard to specific groups of homeless people, including the young, people with difficult lifestyles, those that become homeless voluntarily or involuntarily, or as the result of failure in other service areas, such as psychiatric care.

Research must also look into how housing markets operate, the extent of empty housing, and how the private rental sector can be harnessed to help counter homelessness. The growing privatisation of housing stock can cause a loosening of price controls and creates a need for better regulation of landlords or social rental agencies.

Some participants in the Review pointed out that highlighting the cost-benefit of prevention can help garner support for bettercrafted housing strategies. For example, a 2008 study in England suggested savings of £21,000 on temporary accommodation and of £54,500 on health, legal, security and other expenditure, over two years. Nevertheless, others warned that such arguments risk stereotyping all homeless people as problem cases.

In any case, all agreed that overcoming difficulties in developing a comprehensive national strategy should not take precedence over concrete action and that launching initiatives at local level is preferable to becoming “overwhelmed” by the problem.

As such, NGO-led initiatives should be supported and assisted in training their staff and developing mechanisms for data collection at local level. Some suggested that data collection and compilation should be a mandatory criterion when governments provide funds to NGOs for implementing homeless assistance programmes, although this emerged as a potentially politically sensitive issue.

A role for the EU

Although the EU does not have competency on homelessness or housing policy, and is therefore not in a position to draw up a Europewide strategy, the Commission can support Member States, namely when it comes to data availability and the definition of baselines and indicators.

The EC-funded MPHASIS project (2007-2009), which aims to improve monitoring capacity in 20 European countries through transnational exchange and actionoriented research, is one example of how the EU can support Member States.

The EU must also encourage Member States to collect robust information and set up monitoring systems by sending out a clear message on this at the Spring Council 2010.

http://www.peer-review-social-inclusion.eu/peer-reviews/2009/counting-the-homeless