Chair: Koen Hermans, BE: Introduction: Goals and Achievements of the COST Action

Prof. dr. Koen Hermans is Project Leader at LUCAS, Centre for Care Research and Consultancy, KU Leuven. He is also Assistant Professor ‘Social Policy and Social Work’ at the Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven. His research focuses on homelessness, the care and support of vulnerable groups and social work theories. He is the chair of the COST Action 15218 ‘Measuring homelessness in Europe (2016-2020) and the Treasurer of the European Social Work Research Association.

Volker Busch-Geertsema & Nóra Teller, DE/HU: State of the Art – Definitions and Methods

The presentation summarises the definition(s) of homelessness used in national statistics and research in 24 of the COST members' countries, with reflections on which categories of ETHOS Light are covered by these definitions. We also disuss the main differences of ‚legislative’ framing and research practice in these selected countries. The key types of approaches to measuring homelessness in Europe (and Israel) are examined to conclude then with some lessons about data quality issues.

Professor Dr Volker Busch Geertsema is the Coordinator of the European Observatory on Homelessness and works at the GISS, Gesellschaft für Innovative Sozialforschung und Sozialplanung, Bremen. In the European and international context GISS and Prof Busch Geertsema have been a lead partner in projects focusing on defining and measuring homelessness, prevention of homelessness and on strategies to minimise homelessness. In the German context, his work centers on homelessness research, evaluation and counselling, with a long history of successful work with German Länder and national government on the quantitative extent of homelessness, preventative policies and their effects, types and standards of temporary accommodation and efforts undertaken to reintegrate homeless people into normal permanent housing.

Nóra Teller works at the Metropolitan Research Institute in Budapest, Hungary, and is a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness who has expertise in homelessness research in Central and Eastern EU Member States. She has a broad range of publications on mechanisms of housing exclusion and homelessness, and has worked in consultancy projects relating to extreme forms of housing exclusion across the CEE region for 20 years. She was involved as national expert in an European wide study on the prevention of homelessness in 2015, authored a comparative review of the use of EU funds for tackling homelessness commissioned by DG Regio in 2017, worked as a national expert for the ESPN report on National Policies to Fight Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (2019), and has co-led WP1 in the COST Action Measuring Homelessness in Europe, since 2016.

Lars Benjaminsen et al, DK: The Nordic Approach to National Counts

In the Nordic countries, homelessness in monitored through national counts and statistics. This presentation examines the approaches and methodologies used to counting homelessness in four Nordic countries. Denmark, Norway and Sweden all use a similar methodology based on an extended service based count involving not only homelessness services but also a wide range of other services and agencies in the welfare system, and collecting detailed information on each individual experiencing homelessness during a ‘count week’. Finland uses different method based on collecting data from from Finnish municipalities based on various sources. Common for all four countries is the provision of time series data that are used for a variety of planning and steering purposes

Dr Lars Benjaminsen’s (VIVE, The Danish Centre for Social Science Research, Copenhagen and European Observatory on Homelessness) research focuses on homelessness and social exclusion within Denmark and in a comparative perspective in Europe. He is responsible for the national homelessness counts in Denmark that are conducted every second year since 2007. He has evaluated several programmes and interventions on homelessness in Denmark. He has been leading extensive research projects on homelessness and other forms of social marginalisation in Denmark. In particular, he has been responsible for several research projects making use of the extensive administrative data available in Denmark including studies on pathways in and out of homelessness, youth homelessness, and the use of welfare services. His research focuses on the multidimensionality of social marginalisation and how homelessness arises in a complex interplay with various other forms of exclusion and disadvantage.

Joerg Dittman et al, CH: Local Counts Methodologies

For the past few years, homelessness has increasingly been recorded on the city level. On the one hand, this is because national surveys are completely lacking or do not provide sufficient data at city level; on the other hand, cities in particular are noticing an increase in homelessness and city politicians are under pressure to act. In this context, several questions arise as regards theoretical framing of the city counts, methodological issues, conceptualising and comparability of data and results over time and places. So far, there has been no common understanding about a city count and each city in Europe seems to develop its own approach in measuring homelessness by a city count. At the same time, international attention has been paid to mapping these experiences and methodological approaches across different European cities. This paper is a first attempt towards a comparability of the sense and the purpose of a city count. Based on the authors own experiences in organising city counts in the four cities Basel, Bratislava, Brussels, and Budapest, the paper discusses theoretical pathways towards counts, highlights the role of stakeholders, the area of a counting and the relationship between data and political consequences.

Prof. Dr. Jörg Dittmann is Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. His main topics of interest include poverty, social planning and quantitative social research.

Reaction by Wayne Stanley, vice president of FEANTSA

Wayne Stanley has worked the leading NGOs addressing homelessness in Ireland for more than 15 years. His current role is National Spokesperson and Head of Policy and Communications with the Simon Communities of Ireland. He leads on the strategic development of the organisation, working closely with the board of directors and the 8 Simon Communities to achieve the political commitment and policy change required to end homelessness in Ireland. With a strong commitment to the right to housing Wayne is Chairperson of Home for Good, a coalition of organisations and individuals campaigning for a constitutional right to a home in Ireland.

He is currently Vice President of FEANTSA (European Federation of National Organisation working with the Homeless) where he works with European colleagues, MEPs and European policy makers to tackle homelessness in Europe.

Q&A with audience

Chair: Volker Busch-Geertsema, DE

Professor Dr Volker Busch Geertsema is the Coordinator of the European Observatory on Homelessness and works at the GISS, Gesellschaft für Innovative Sozialforschung und Sozialplanung, Bremen. In the European and international context GISS and Prof Busch Geertsema have been a lead partner in projects focusing on defining and measuring homelessness, prevention of homelessness and on strategies to minimise homelessness. In the German context, his work centers on homelessness research, evaluation and counselling, with a long history of successful work with German Länder and national government on the quantitative extent of homelessness, preventative policies and their effects, types and standards of temporary accommodation and efforts undertaken to reintegrate homeless people into normal permanent housing.

Eoin O’Sullivan, IE: Distorting Tendencies in Homelessness Research: Measurement, Methodology and Medicine

In 1994, Snow et al observed that the bulk of the research literature on homelessness, portrayed the majority of those experiencing homelessness, particularly those literally homeless on the streets, as ‘drunk, stoned, crazy or sick’ (1994, p.462). They argued that such a portrait was distorted and flawed, and resulted from the use of research methodologies and instruments that were unable to capture the dynamics and context of homelessness resulted in ‘a truncated, decontextualized, and over-pathologized picture of the homeless.’ Indeed, Gowan (2010) memorably described discourses around homelessness in the US as either Sin-talk, Sick-talk or System-talk, where sick-talk referred to the socio-biological interpretation of addiction’ (2010, p.xix). ‘Sick-talk’ is largely internalised by the experiencing homelessness and engaging in problematic use of various psycho-pharmacological substances, but in this paper we wish to broaden the concept to how those experiencing homelessness are portrayed in medical research. Using examples of recent medical research on those experiencing homelessness in Germany, Ireland, Slovenia and the UK, the paper argues that such medical research firstly, largely only captures the experience of the minority who experience entrenched homelessness; second, use inconsistent diagnostic techniques and applications in measuring, and third, fails to capture the dynamics of homelessness resulting in a partial, distorted and decontextualised portrayed of those experiencing homelessness.

Professor O’Sullivan is one of the leading homelessness researchers in Ireland and has been closely involved in the development and analysis of national homelessness policy. He has experience of working in the homelessness sector and has led research on youth homelessness and has an interest in the interrelationships between criminal justice systems and homelessness. He is Lead Editor of the European Journal on Homelessness and a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness.

Pete Mackie and Ian Thomas, UK: Homelessness Administrative data: from measurement to mobilisation

There is an enduring interest in the use of administrative data for homelessness policy and research. Administrative data—also known as records or registers—are data routinely generated by organisations and can be considered the ‘data exhaust’ from operational purposes. Examples of administrative data include records of stays in shelters, or intake screening when entering a homelessness system. This presentation draws upon the findings of multiple studies by the presenters to make the case for more effective use of administrative data to measure homelessness and, more importantly, to mobilise data to facilitate an end to homelessness.

The primary focus of Peter Mackie’s research is on the development of UK homelessness policy and legislation through research and advisory work, whilst also contributing to debates beyond the UK, particularly in relation to homelessness prevention. He is currently a Knowledge Exchange Lead for the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, a member of the International Advisory Board for the Canadian Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab (Making the Shift), and convenor of the WISERD Wales Housing Research Network.

Ian Thomas’ research interests include homelessness, housing, sexuality, and digital technologies. He works with large complex administrative data sets, with a particular focus on the intersection of experiences of homelessness and other aspects of a person’s life, for example their health and education. Through his current research and engagement activities he is contributing the design of several new forms of data collection about people who are homeless, including rough sleeper data collection and monitoring platforms in both Wales and Scotland, and a new individual-level data collection about people receiving assistance with homelessness from local authorities in Wales.

Magdalena Mostowska, PL: At the Intersections of Statistical Categories

Homelessness research largely concerns people who fall through various safety nets. These nets could not only support them but also register them. As has been observed many times before, production of data (knowledge) is an exercise in setting the boundaries of the phenomenon and in governing the problem. But who is behind the categories of the two dimensional tables that contain ‘homelessness statistics’? The presentation will attempt to unpack what type of social constructions lie at the intersections of some of those categories. The presentation will also show examples of homelessness governmentality through establishing hierarchies of vulnerabilities that affect visibility, eligibility, and perceived deservingness of particular groups.

Magdalena Mostowska is a sociologist, lecturer and researcher. She has worked on several research projects on the homelessness experiences of Polish migrants in the EU. More recently she has been focused on women's of homelessness in Poland and Belgium.

Q&A with audience

Chair: Maša Filipovič Hrast, SI

Maša Filipovič Hrast is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana, where she lectures on Sociology of social problems and Social policy. She is a researcher in the Centre for Welfare studies at the Faculty of Social sciences. Her research topics are linked to social policy and welfare state, and living conditions and quality of life with focus on specific vulnerable groups.

Nicholas Pleace, UK: The Case for Ending the Distinction between 'Homelessness' and 'Hidden Homelessness' in Enumerating Homelessness

This presentation reviews the case for measuring homelessness among people who are housed in insecure, unfit and unsafe temporary housing and other accommodation, such as hotels, alongside people experiencing living rough and who are living in emergency shelters. The ethical, definitional, political and cultural dimensions are considered and the presentation also explores the logistical challenges and opportunities in measuring all forms of homelessness.

Nicholas Pleace has been researching homelessness since 1994. He has led multiple, major, policy research projects on homelessness for the Scottish and Welsh Governments, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and multiple departments of the UK government. Internationally, he has worked with DIHAL, which leads the French national homelessness strategy and with the Finnish Ministry of Environment on the international evaluation of the Finnish National Homelessness Strategy. He has worked extensively with the homelessness sector, including Crisis, FEANTSA, Focus Ireland, Homeless Link and the Simon Communities of Ireland. He has been part of the European Observatory on Homelessness since 2010. Professor Pleace is currently the University of York Research Champion for Justice and Equality and Director of the University’s Centre for Housing Policy.

Nicole Mondelaers and Nicolas Horvat: Brussels Count: The Brussels City Count, a Search for a Balance Between the Stakeholders

The presentation will discuss issues around the following questions: How to consult and involve the homeless sector at all stages? How to involve the homeless themselves and at least inform them in due time? How to count people without legal residence (who do not access services and/or refuse help for fear of eviction) and people in squats without facilitating eviction or removal.? But also how to maintain an autonomous position vis-à-vis policy makers and other pressure groups in order to collect, report and disseminate data in the most neutral and qualitative way possible?

Nicole Mondelaers was the coordinator of the Brussels city count in 2016 and 2017, and works for La Strada, Support center for the homeless sector in the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium.

Nicolas Horvat was the coordinator of the Brussels city count in 2020,and works for Bruss’Help, a public law association mandated to coordinate emergency assistance and integration measures for homeless people in the Brussels Capital Region (successor to la Strada), Belgium.

Lynette Šikić-Mićanović: The invisibility of street homelessness in Croatia: Implications for research and policy

Homelessness was a relatively new unresearched phenomenon in post-socialist countries during the 1990s, due to criminalisation and its hidden nature during socialism. Three decades later, the scale and scope of homelessness in post-socialist countries still remains entirely unknown to social welfare systems and general populations in countries that now belong to the EU. As a way of hiding homelessness and negating its increasing prevalence, governments have re-introduced or propagate stricter enforcement of criminalisation and penalisation measures. Tough and unfair legal regulations that often result in legal, service and market exclusion, minimise the visibility of people experiencing homelessness and can make life quite impossible for this population. The aim of this presentation is to show why rough sleepers in Croatia remain hidden in real life (due to codes that criminalise a lack of ID and local address requirements) and in the national statistics (refusal to acknowledge and take responsibility for the growing numbers of roofless people). Based on ethnographic accounts and examples, this discussion will be also about measures that limit use of public spaces to punishment of life-sustaining and human activities. Discussion will also explore the implications of homelessness invisibility for qualitative research (ethical considerations) and the overall absence of reliable data on and understandings about hidden homelessness to inform policy.

Lynette Šikić-Mićanović is a senior research advisor at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar in Zagreb, Croatia. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology and her research interests include: gender and social inequality; reflexivity and anthropological ethics as well as qualitative field methods. Her current work uses ethnographic methods and explores homelessness as well as pathways to social inclusion among people experiencing homelessness in Croatia.

Koen Hermans and Ursula Tummer: Homelessness and Migration

Given the growing superdiversity of European societies, measuring and monitoring the intersections between migration and homelessness needs a fundamental reflection. In this contribution, we firstly look into the available evidence produced by (members of) the European Observatory on Homelessness (EOH) on the ways the relationship between homelessness and migration have been measured. Secondly, we analyse the way migrant homelessness is measured in Norway, Austria, Belgium and Sweden. Our contribution shows that a fundamental debate is needed about the way homelessness statistics include and exclude specific groups of (migrant) homeless persons.

Prof. dr. Koen Hermans is Project Leader at LUCAS, Centre for Care Research and Consultancy, KU Leuven. He is also Assistant Professor ‘Social Policy and Social Work’ at the Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven. His research focuses on homelessness, the care and support of vulnerable groups and social work theories. He is the chair of the COST Action 15218 ‘Measuring homelessness in Europe (2016-2020) and the Treasurer of the European Social Work Research Association.

Ursula Trummer obtained her PhD in Sociology and a Master degree in Socioeconomic Sciences at the University of Vienna, Austria, and a MSc in Organisational Development and Counselling at the Sigmund Freud University Vienna. She is co-founder and Head of the Center for Health and Migration (www.c-hm.com). Her main research interests are health and migration, social determinants of health, access to health care for vulnerable groups, ethics and economics of globalised health care systems, and methodological challenges of trans- and interdisciplinary research. Ursula Trummer acted/acts as project director of European and international projects, lectures at various universities (Public Health, Vulnerable Groups, Gender Medicine, Humanitarian Approaches, Globalisation), and acts as independent expert to the European Commission, the European Agency for Fundamental Rights, and OSCE/ODIHR. She is member of the executive committee of the global Migration Health and Development Research Initiative (MHADRI).

Q&A with audience

The webinar will also host the launch of the report report on access to housing for Undocumented Migrants in 28 countries (22 EU-Member States, CH, NO, USA, JP, CAN, TR) of the Center for Health and Migration.