Homelessness remains a multi-dimensional, persistent social challenge, affecting over 2 million people per year in OECD and EU countries as of 2024. It results from a complex interplay of structural factors, institutional failures, and individual circumstances. Research suggests that the main drivers vary across countries and communities, and can shift over time. Structural factors, like tight housing markets, poverty, weakened social safety nets, and reductions in social supports, like housing allowances, can heighten the risk of homelessness. At the same time, institutional failures persist, whereby the transition to sustainable housing from institutional and care facilities (such as state care, the criminal justice system, or hospitals) is insufficiently managed, increasing the risk of housing instability among people leaving institutional settings. Individual circumstances, such as an eviction, job loss, family breakdown, intimate partner violence, and mental health conditions, also increase the likelihood of homelessness. As such, the evidence and practical experiences presented in this Toolkit underscore the need to both expand affordable and social housing solutions, and strengthen inclusive social safety nets.
Structured around nine building blocks, the Toolkit proposes a framework for designing integrated, people‑centred, housing-led homelessness policies. Together, these building blocks propose a pathway to eradicating homelessness, calling for a greater emphasis on prevention, low-barrier services, and housing-led and Housing First solutions. Policy makers do not need to address all issues captured in the blocks at once. Depending on the country context, they can focus first on the most pressing priorities, and address other issues in subsequent phases. By implementing and adapting relevant recommendations to their specific contexts, policy makers can make significant progress in the following nine essential areas:
Block 1 – Strategies, stakeholders, and inclusion underscores the importance of developing national (or regional) strategies that are inclusive and evidence‑based. A clear strategy should define priorities, set measurable targets and ensure co‑ordination across government agencies and civil society. Engaging a wide range of stakeholders and co-creating strategies and programmes with people with lived experience of homelessness are essential.
Block 2 – Measurement: Definitions, data, and drivers addresses the need for a clear statistical definition of homelessness, drawing on the ETHOS Light Typology, and robust data collection. More research into systemic and structural drivers of homelessness in different country and community contexts, such as income inequality, unemployment, and migration patterns, is necessary to inform effective prevention strategies.
Block 3 – Monitoring and evaluation stresses the importance of systematically tracking policy outcomes to ensure that interventions meet their goals. Regular evaluations using a set of predefined indicators allow countries to refine policies and scale successful programmes.
Block 4 – Prioritising prevention highlights the need to shift from reactive to proactive policy approaches. Preventing homelessness is a moral imperative, but also more effective and cost-efficient than responding only after people are already experiencing homelessness. Measures such as early intervention programmes, eviction prevention, and tailored support for at-risk individuals, including people leaving institutional settings, can reduce the risk of homelessness.
Block 5 – Long-term housing solutions: Housing-led and Housing First advocates shifting the paradigm from temporary, emergency housing towards Housing-led and Housing First models, which offer unconditional, long-term housing solutions, accompanied by tailored service for individuals who need them. Housing First has proven effective in improving housing stability and reducing reliance on costly emergency services. Scaling up such programmes is critical to ending chronic homelessness.
Block 6 – Low-barrier, tailored services focuses on expanding access to wraparound support services that address the diverse needs of people experiencing homelessness. Services like healthcare, mental health support, and employment assistance should be easily accessible and designed without unnecessary bureaucratic barriers. Tailored, person-centred approaches help individuals maintain housing and rebuild their lives.
Block 7 – Funding and financing discusses strategies to secure adequate and sustained funding for homelessness initiatives. Long-term financial commitments and innovative financing solutions, such as revolving funds, public-private partnerships, and social impact bonds, can be considered to achieve sustainability and scalability.
Block 8 – Leadership, co‑ordination, and capacity calls for strengthened governance and co‑ordinated action across sectors. Assigning a clear policy lead and improving collaboration with other ministries, levels of government, and non-governmental organisations are necessary. Providing frontline workers and local governments with the skills, resources, and support they need to effectively implement policies and support government reforms should be prioritised.
Block 9 – The political economy of reform recognises the challenges of implementing large‑scale policy changes amid political, economic, and social pressures. It provides guidance on building broad-based coalitions, depoliticising homelessness issues, and engaging public support. Consistent political will, strategic communication, and policy champions are crucial for sustaining momentum beyond election cycles.
While the Toolkit presents the latest available homelessness research to provide a strong foundation for evidence‑based policy making, important evidence gaps remain in the homelessness sector. This is notably the case in terms of data collection, monitoring and evaluation, and cost-effectiveness research. Addressing these gaps through rigorous research can go a long way to advance the fight against homelessness and ensure that policies are evidence‑based, effective, and sustainable:
There is a lack of comprehensive, comparable data to monitor homelessness in OECD and EU countries. Existing datasets often fail to capture the full scope of homelessness, particularly among certain groups, including women and other groups that are more likely to experience “hidden” forms of homelessness that are not well captured in standard data collection. The companion OECD Monitoring Framework: Homelessness measurement in OECD and EU countries explores these issues further and provides a self-assessment tool to guide policy makers in identifying opportunities to strengthen data collection. It will be important to take stock of recent data collection efforts in OECD and EU countries, including an EU-wide pilot project to assess homelessness at local level. Future research could focus on refining data collection methods and go beyond headline figures to understand the different trajectories of homelessness. Further, in-depth country-specific surveys and novel approaches – such as those relying on artificial intelligence (incl. machine learning) and big data sources, where available – may help shed further insights on risk factors and pathways into homelessness. Regular data collection can enable more accurate over-time and cross-country comparison and help tailor policy responses to the needs of different populations experiencing homelessness.
Programme‑level evaluations are another area where evidence remains limited. While housing-led and Housing First approaches have a robust evidence base for diverse populations in different country contexts, rigorous evaluations for other types of interventions, such as prevention programmes, low-barrier services, or other housing programmes, are not yet broadly available. There is a need for more programme‑level evaluations to assess the effectiveness of different approaches and examine contextual factors that may influence effectiveness across countries, allowing policies to be selected, and tailored, accordingly. Evaluations should focus not only on housing outcomes, but also on broader social integration, including health, employment and community participation.
The evidence base on homelessness could be strengthened by expanding the geographic coverage of homelessness research to a more diverse set of contexts, notably in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and southern Europe. Much of the existing evidence base draws a handful of countries, with specific housing systems and social welfare regimes. This can not only identify where adaptations to broadly accepted policy interventions might be needed, but also lead to policy innovation.
Research on the cost-effectiveness of homelessness interventions could also be significantly expanded. While there is growing recognition that preventive and Housing First approaches can economise on public resources by reducing the use of emergency services, police, and health systems, cost-benefit analyses for a wider countries and interventions would be valuable. Governments could benefit from research that quantifies the fiscal impacts of homelessness and the potential savings from different policy approaches. This evidence would be particularly helpful to advocate for scaling up proven responses.
This OECD Toolkit to Combat Homelessness is intended as both a resource and a roadmap for the many institutions and individuals engaged in preventing homelessness, supporting people who are experiencing homelessness, and providing sustainable pathways out of homelessness. Moving forward, strengthening the evidence base and shifting the policy paradigm away from emergency measures towards prevention and long-term housing solutions should be at the core of governments efforts.