Rationale - what it means and why it is an important measure
Having a home to live in at all is the most basic housing issue. There may be several reasons for a homeless situation, such as the housing price to income ratio. In big cities, the homeless are often children under the age of sixteen; this is an indication of the level of social care.
How it is compiled, what data are needed
Defined as the number of people per thousand of an urban area population that sleeps outside of dwelling units (e.g. on streets, in parks, railroad stations, and under bridges) or in the temporary shelters of charitable institutions. The indicator does not include data on people that live in mobile homes. The indicator can be divided into 2 categories: homeless children under sixteen and above sixteen.
The indicator should be measured annually.
Measurements and units
Homeless people (Number, %)
Possible temporal and spatial format
trend charts, maps
Reference to methodology resources
WHO, 1997. Healthy Cities Indicators: Analysis of Data from Cities Across Europe.
