About the European Journal of Home­less­ness

The European Journal of Homelessness is an international, peer reviewed journal, that welcomes the submission of high-quality, original research on homelessness, local, regional national and comparative policy reviews, and think pieces that stimulate debate and foster critical reflection. We particularly encourage contributions which engage with, extend or critique debates previously published in the European Journal of Homelessness.

The European Journal of Homelessness provides a critical analysis of policy and practice on homelessness in Europe for policy makers, practitioners, researchers and academics.  The aim is to stimulate debate on homelessness and housing exclusion at the European level and to facilitate the development of a stronger evidential base for policy development and innovation. The Journal seeks to give international exposure to significant national, regional and local developments and to provide a forum for comparative analysis of policy and practice in preventing and tackling homelessness in Europe. The Journal is also intended to explore lessons for Europe, which can be derived from policy, practice and research from elsewhere.

Originally published once a year, the Journal is now published 3 times a year and we welcome the submission of manuscripts at any time.

Manuscripts should be submitted as a Word file e-mail attachment to Professor Eoin O’Sullivan (email hidden; JavaScript is required). Authors’ details and contact information should be included in the body of the e-mail, and should not appear on the manuscript in order to facilitate the anonymous peer reviewing process.

Please note that this journal only publishes manuscripts in English.

The Editors of the Journal welcome contributions to the Journal, which analyse and interpret aspects of policy and practice in relation to homelessness and housing exclusion in Europe. Articles that explicitly address cross-national issues are particularly welcome.  

The distinctive readership of the Journal, which cuts across academic disciplines, national boundaries and includes NGOs and policy makers at the local, national and transnational level, makes the following points of particular importance to contributors. (1) Whatever the specific aspect of homelessness under discussion, the relevance of the conclusions to a broad understanding of policymaking should be made explicit; (2) whatever the national setting, the extent to which conclusions are generalisable cross-nationally should be explicitly discussed; (3) jargon should be avoided and technical terms not widely understood should be clearly defined; and (4) the conclusions of statistical analyses should be set out in prose, as well as being supported by relevant quantitative information in tables, footnotes and text.

Articles considered for publication in the European Journal of Homelessness will be double blind peer reviewed, and should be policy-relevant contributions not previously published. Articles should fall within the range 6,000-8,000 words, and include an abstract of between 150 and 200 words, up to six keywords, and a list of references (the word count includes the abstract and any footnotes but not the list of references). Any graphics should be produced in black and white only.

Author's details and contact information should be included in the body of the e-mail, and should not appear on the manuscript in order to facilitate the anonymous peer reviewing process.

The European Journal of Homelessness welcomes submission in the following formats.

Research Articles: research articles should generally contain between 6,000 and 8,000 words including abstract, notes and bibliography. Research articles will typically make a contribution to the social science literature on homelessness and housing exclusion, be academically rigorous in methodology and analysis and provide clear evidence for the conclusions.

Research Notes: research notes generally highlight a methodological innovation or new research findings that are within the journal’s scope, without having the extensive review and detailed engagement with the existing literature on the topic that you would expect in an research article, and hence a research note will also be shorter, at typically 4-5,000 words, rather than the 7-8,000 words more typical of a research article.

Think Pieces: think pieces are typically short (circa, 3-4,000 words) constructively provocative contributions that address key policy and practice issues that are within the journal’s scope. While following evidence based arguments, think pieces are typically more polemical in tone that a research article or research note. 

Book Reviews and Review Symposia are normally commissioned by the editor, but we welcome suggestions for books to be reviewed that are within the journal’s scope. 

Research Articles, Research Notes and Think Pieces should be accompanied by an abstract of between 100 and 200 words plus up to six key words and details of any acknowledgements. Abstracts should disclose the substantive argument or finding of the article and not merely its subject and formal structure.

All manuscripts should conform exactly to the European Journal of Homelessness style in terms of conventions such as capitalization, reference format and the presentation of tables and figures. These conventions are summarized below.

References

These should be indicated in the text by giving the author’s surname(s) with the year of publication (e.g. (Parsell, 2023)). References to more than one publication by the same author in the same year should be distinguished alphabetically (e.g. Parsell, 2023a; Parsell 2023b; etc). Where there are two authors both should be named (e.g. Parsell and Stambe, 2023). Where there are more than two authors the abbreviation ‘et al.’ should be used (e.g. Parsell et al., 2025). The author and date references should be placed in parentheses unless the name forms part of the text, in which case the date is placed in parenthesis (e.g. Parsell (2023) argues that…’.) Where material referenced has not yet been published it should be referred to as ‘forthcoming’ (e.g. (Parsell, forthcoming)).

Where several references are given for the same point, these should be listed in date order separated by semi-colons (e.g. Parsell, 2023; Parsell et al, 2022; Parsell, 2018 etc.). Where page numbers are given, this should be in the following format (Parsell, 2023, p.29); or if more than one page is referred to (Parsell, 2023, pp.29-34). Page numbers must always be given for direct quotations.

The references should be listed in full at the end of the paper in the following standard forms:

Journal article

Wallberg, L., Alstam, K., & Petersson, F. (2025). "You live the same day 24/7, day in and day out": Managing everyday life in homelessness in Sweden. European Journal of Homelessness, 19(2), 57–79.

Chapter in an edited book

Benjaminsen, L. (2023). Homelessness and welfare systems. In J. Bretherton & N. Pleace (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of homelessness (pp. 60–70). Routledge.

Book

Parsell, C. (2023). Homelessness. Polity Press.

Non-English source

Benjaminsen, L. (2024). Hjemløshed i Danmark 2024: National kortlægning [Homelessness in Denmark 2024: National mapping]. VIVE – The National Research and Analysis Centre for Welfare.

For a website source, please follow the APA 7 format:

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title of webpage. Site Name. URL

Cullen, P. (2024, March 12). Number of people homeless in Ireland rises to record 14,000. The Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2024/03/12/number-of-people-homeless-in-ireland-rises-to-record-14000/

The European Journal of Homelessness is committed to peer-review integrity and upholding the highest standards of review. Once your paper has been assessed for suitability by the editor, it will then be double blind peer-reviewed by independent, anonymous, expert referees. Please refer to our style guidelines when preparing your paper.

The European Journal of Homelessness is an open access journal, making it free to access online immediately on publication.

Lead Editor:

Eoin O’Sullivan, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Editorial Team:

Koen Hermans, KU Leuven, Belgium: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Lars Benjaminsen, Danish National Centre for Social Research, Copenhagen, Denmark: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Maša Filipovič Hrast, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Mike Allen, Focus Ireland, Ireland: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Nicholas Pleace, School for Business and Society, University of York, UK:  email hidden; JavaScript is required

Nóra Teller, Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest, Hungary: email hidden; JavaScript is required

Volker Busch-Geertsema, GISS (Association for Innovative Social Research and Social Planning), Bremen, Germany (Coordinator of European Observatory on Homelessness): email hidden; JavaScript is required

Editorial Assistant:

Courtney Marsh, University of Ghent, Belgium

International Advisory Committee of the European Journal of Homelessness:

Professor Isobel Anderson (University of Stirling), UK

Professor Tim Aubry (University of Ottawa), Canada

Professor Pedro José Cabrera (Comillas Pontifical University of Madrid), Spain

Professor Jochen Clasen (University of Edinburgh), UK

Professor Dennis P. Culhane (University of Pennsylvania), USA

Professor Pascal De Decker (KU Leuven), Belgium

Professor Emeritus Joe Doherty (University of St Andrews), UK

Dr. Evelyn Dyb (Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research), Norway

Mr. Bill Edgar (European Housing Research Ltd), UK

Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh), UK

Professor Paul Flatau (Murdoch University), Australia

Professor Stephen Gaetz (York University), Canada

Professor Susanne Gerull (Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin), Germany

Professor József Hegedu?s (Metropolitan Research Institute Budapest), Hungary

Professor Guy Johnson (RMIT University, Melbourne), Australia

Professor Marcus Knutagård (Lund University), Sweden

Professor Claire Lévy-Vroelant (Université Paris 8 -Vincennes – Saint-Denis), France

Professor Thomas Maloutas (Harokopio University, Athens), Greece

Dr. Magdalena Mostowska (University of Warsaw), Poland

Professor Ingrid Sahlin (Lund University), Sweden

Professor Marybeth Shinn (Vanderbilt University), USA

Dr. Svetlana Stephenson (London Metropolitan University), UK

Professor Antonio Tosi (Politecnico University of Milan), Italy

Professor Judith Wolf (UMC St Radboud, Nijmegen), The Netherlands

Consultative Committee of the European Journal of Homelessness:

Elisabth Hammer, Austria                                          

Marco Iazzolino, Italy

Yahyâ Samii, Belgium                                    

Aida Kar?iauskien?, Lithuania

Kate?ina Glumbíková, Czech Republic                       

Andreas Vogt, Luxembourg

Ole Svendsen, Denmark                                            

Jakub Wilczek, Poland

Juha Kaakinen, Finland                                              

Filipe Miranda, Portugal

Jean Michel David, France                                         

Ian Tilling, Romania

Werena Rosenke, Germany                           

Bojan Kuljanac, Slovenia

Lazaros Petromelidis, Greece                       

Laura Guijarro Edo, Spain

Peter Bakos, Hungary                                   

Kjell Larsson, Sweden

Pat Doyle, Ireland                                                      

Rina Beers, The Netherlands

Jules Oldham, UK