On 6 May, the EU proposed its first Anti-Poverty Strategy, which includes measures to prevent homelessness and accessible support services for those already experiencing it.
But the problem starts much earlier, and the causes are plenty: house prices have risen by 60% since 2013, rents by 20% on average, social policies have been rolled back across Europe, especially protections for undocumented migrants, and 24% of Europeans under 29 are at risk of poverty.
People living in extreme poverty are more likely to experience homelessness, which turns into extreme social marginalisation and disadvantage. Such exclusion, according to the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), also makes it harder for the people experiencing it to participate in elections and political life, fuelling distrust towards institutions and disrupting social cohesion.
Tackling homelessness starts with data, and the reality of it remains under- or unevenly documented. Homelessness pushes people into invisibility, and that's hard to track.
As a report by FEANTSA shows, both the instruments to count homeless people and authorities' willingness to do so vary greatly.
We don't know whether a country like Romania reporting a lower number than the Netherlands actually has fewer homeless people, or simply uses different counting methods, has different regulations, cultural perceptions, or service availability.
After all, “defining homelessness is a political decision,” Freek Spinnewijn, FEANTSA's Director, told TEC.
Even in countries with advanced counting systems, such as Denmark, only people who have contact with social services are considered. Some categories, such as asylum seekers, are systematically excluded from the count, though they can often end up homeless too.
“Countries with a solid data collection system usually have better policies,” Spinneiwijn explained. “Is it more women? Is it more men? Women's homelessness is not the same as men's homelessness. We see an increase in homelessness among LGBTQI+ communities, which requires specific services.”
Between 26 and 28 January 2026, the Italian National Institute of Statistics carried out its largest effort so far to count homeless people across 14 major cities. Thousands of volunteers went out at night and gathered as much information on people sleeping in shelters, on benches, or at the corner of a street as they could.
Only 16.7% of surveyed people were willing or able to interact with volunteers. David, who works closely with homeless people through the Red Cross and other social organisations, told TEC: “You can only have a real interaction, and real information, when you find that person to whom the homeless person in question connects.” This is what a census cannot capture: the length it takes to build trust, get to know someone, and understand their unique path and needs.
Homelessness itself is dynamic and unstable. “More people sleep on the street in the summer, but during the winter, it is easier to find them in shelters,” David explained.
Another issue: “Getting only numbers diminishes the problem. You are not giving a real value to people,” David said. According to him, if we really want to inform better policies, we need to use the knowledge held by those who work on the ground – social workers who have taken the time and effort to build trusting relationships with the people they support.