Defining homelessness

Issues concerning the definition of homelessness include the following questions:

• Is there a difference between defining "homeless people" and defining "homelessness"?
  
• What are the dimensions of housing situations that should be taken into account when defining homelessness and also housing need?
  
• What are the pros and cons of including other dimensions besides housing in the definition of homelessness e.g. employment, social networks, dependency issues? Which countries have done so?
  
• Which countries have an "official" definition of homelessness and what links are there between this definition and housing policies?
  
• How should we handle the time fact in the definition of the homeless population?

At the first CUHP workshop Maryse Marpsat of INED presented a working definition of homelessness used in several French surverys.

- DEFINING HOMELESSNESS by Maryse Marpsat, INED

The debate on the Marpsat paper focussed on whether homeless people are or are not a distinct social group or ’population’, but are people who find themselves, for a period, as homeless, i.e. without housing. Researchers from Spain and Italy presented an alternative perspective that homelessness is found among specific populations of socially excluded people who are also homeless. They argued that homelessness must be defined through the housing situation of people but must also include psycho-social factors.

The teams from Netherlands and Denmark joined France in arguing strongly that it is difficult to operationalise psychological definition in a statistical survey. And, in order to observe the causes or consequences of family background, mental health, substance dependency, these factors cannot be included in the definition. The UK agreed but also argued that there are populations that are more at risk of homelessness due to poverty, family background, school exclusion.

A summary of the first full discussion on the definition of homelessness can be found in the attached paper.

- Summary of the Paris Workshop

All the research teams produced a paper on the definitions of homelessness used in their countries.

- INED, Fr produced a short paper describing the implementation of different definitions of homelessness in surveys of homeless people in France.

- CHCR, UK produced a paper describing the different definitions of homelessness in the UK in relation to legislation, voluntary sector work and rough-sleeping.

- Complutense University team, Sp described problems associated with a lack of an official definition in Spain, and the association of homelessness with vagrancy and beggin.

- SFI, DK, described Denmark’s juridicial approach to homelessness and both housing and social competency elements to the definition.

- NIZW, NL, described the definitions that had become common through research into the field.

- DIAP, IT, described the problems of definition in that country.

- MRI, HU, described the legal definition established through the 1993 Social Law in post-Socialist Hungary.

For additional information on the definition of homelessness used in France, please download the paper written by François Clanché, which describes the meetings of the homelessness working group (groupe sans-abri) of the Conseil National de l’Information Statistique (CNIS), for more than two years, between 1993 and 1996. The groupe sans-sbri included statisticians, researchers, officials, social work professionals and representatives of voluntary agencies working with the housing excluded.

- Classifying Housing Situations: Homeless People in General Classifications by François Clanché

Please use the ’contact us’ facility to tell us the definition of homelessness by yourself in your research and comment on the discussion so far,
or to report on the definition of homelessness in your country
Click here for Contact Us