Official statistics often underestimate the extent and diversity of homelessness and housing exclusion. Methodological challenges make some types of precarious living situations particularly difficult to identify and count, notably people who are unsheltered and those temporarily staying with family or friends because they have no alternative, often referred to as “hidden homelessness”. As a result, key groups may be absent from official statistics, limiting governments’ ability to understand the full extent of homelessness, monitor trends, and design effective policy responses.
This report addresses these measurement gaps by examining how countries across the OECD measure unsheltered and hidden homelessness. It first reviews the methodological challenges associated with measuring these forms of homelessness and analyses the measurement approaches adopted in different national contexts. Drawing on international experience, the report highlights key methodological choices, strengths, limitations and trade-offs of different methods to capture these forms of homelessness. Building on these findings, the report proposes practical recommendations to strengthen the measurement of unsheltered and hidden homelessness in Germany, while identifying broader lessons for OECD governments seeking to improve the measurement of homelessness and housing exclusion.
