20th European Research Conference on Home­less­ness

Focus of the visit: presentation of the emergency accommodation response for homeless adults and the integrated intervention model developed jointly by VITAE, Lisbon City Council, and Ares do Pinhal, including social support, harm reduction, health and addictions support, and community integration pathways.

30 participants, divided into 2 groups of 15. The two groups will do the visit between 10:00 and 13:00. The final schedule still needs to be confirmed.

Organisation:
VITAE – Association for Solidarity and International Development

Pre-visit contact person:
Adiana Silva – email hidden; JavaScript is required 

Where:
Rua do Grilo nº 84, 1950-144 Lisbon, Portugal

What you will see:
The Municipal Emergency Shelter (CAEM) opened on 15 September 2021, with a capacity of 128 people — 8 places for couples (16 people), 17 places for women, and 95 for men. Its purpose is to provide temporary housing for homeless adults.

The service operates under a shared management model involving three partners: Lisbon City Council; VITAE – Association for Solidarity and International Development, responsible for logistics, social support, and a specialised follow-up programme focused on preventing recidivism; and Ares do Pinhal Association, which oversees clinical support and specialist services in the area of addictions.

The intervention is built on a strategic, holistic framework rooted in harm reduction and risk minimisation, keeping the individual at the centre of all support.

The service takes a strong community integration approach, bringing together multiple areas of intervention — including basic needs, social support, health, employment, vocational training, empowerment, and legal protection — fostering coordinated collaboration among public and private stakeholders.

The Shelter aims to be a place defined by dignity, belonging, and meaningful relationships, where each person is recognised and valued as an individual.

Who will be present:

On behalf of VITAE — Board President; Technical Director of International Cooperation and CAEM Technical Coordinator; Technical Director of the Lisbon City Hub; Technical Coordinator of the Follow-Up Programme.

On behalf of Ares do Pinhal Association — Director and Technical Coordinator.

The technical teams of both organisations and people experiencing homelessness who are staying at the Shelter will also be present and working on-site during the visit.

Meeting point:
Unicorn Factory Lisboa – Beato Innovation District

How to get there:

The following routes serve the Rua do Grilo area:

    •    Bus: 718, 728, 742, 34B, 781, 782
    •    Train: Azambuja Line, Sintra Line
    •    Metro: Red Line
    •    Tram: 15E, 28E

Maximum number of participants: Visits are generally capped at 30 people, divided into 2 groups of 15.

Additional information: https://www.assoc-vitae.org/pt/home

• Focus of the visit: Housing First model and community-based support for people experiencing homelessness.
• Maximum number of participants: 30 participants.

About AEIPS: https://www.aeips.pt/

• Focus of the visit: shared housing solutions and social integration support
• Maximum number of participants: 30

About CASA: https://www.casa-apoioaosemabrigo.org/

• Focus of the visit: social inclusion through employment and vocational training in the restaurant sector.  A restaurant where the service is provided by people who have experienced homelessness.
• 30 participants

About CRESCER: https://crescer.org/en/project/e-um-restaurante/

Chair: Koen Hermans, BE

Sonia Lech, Sam Yelnosky, Stefanie Schreiter, DE: Prevalence of Homelessness – Data of Electronic Health Records from a Psychiatric Hospital in Germany

Introduction: Homelessness is a critical issue in mental health, closely associated with severe psychiatric conditions and poorer clinical outcomes. However, research in this area is constrained by fragmented data systems and inconsistent measurement, limiting accurate estimates of its prevalence among psychiatric populations. These challenges are particularly evident in clinical settings, where homelessness is often underreported or misclassified. In this context, electronic health record (EHR) data represent a promising yet underutilized source for improving prevalence estimates among individuals with mental illness. 

Methods: Data of electronic health records from a psychiatric hospital in Berlin was analysed. Based on structured demographic data and  keywords  in  doctor’s  notes,  an  EHR  algorithm  classified  the   housing status of all in-patient psychiatric cases admitted after 01.01.2020 and discharged before 05.28.2024. Diagnosis and length of stay were analysed. 

Results: A total of 6043 cases were eligible to be screened by the algorithm, of which 1642 were classified as homeless. The raw, unadjusted prevalence of homelessness across the entire study period was 27.2% (95% CI [26.1-28.3]). Compared to housed patients, homeless patients were younger (40 years compared to 46 years old), more male (70% males compared to 52% male), had a shorter average length of stay (7 days compared to 13 days), and were more likely to have a substance use disorder diagnosis (38% compared to 25%). 

Discussion: A substantial minority of psychiatric inpatients are homeless. These patients are a vulnerable subpopulation who could benefit from targeted interventions. EHR algorithms can and should be used to identify, research and target these patients.

Sonia Lech, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and research associate at the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, where she also co-leads the working group on Mental Health Care for Vulnerable Populations. Her research focuses on the mental health of people experiencing homelessness, with an emphasis on improving access to and quality of care. She has coordinated projects on health and homelessness in Berlin and brings practical experience from volunteering in night shelters for homeless women. Her current work focuses on mental health care services in Germany while also engaging in international exchange to inform and advance innovative approaches to care. 

Philipp Schnell, AT: Comparing Results of the EU Homelessness Counts in Two Mid-Sized Austrian Cities – Methodological and Practical Implications for the Future

The two Austrian cities Salzburg and Innsbruck are comparable in size, geographical surroundings, housing market situation, and the local network of services for PEH. Both cities participated in the 2025 EU Homelessness Counts and generated comprehensive results on the local homelessness situation. Comprehensive service-based counts were conducted in both cities offering the prospect of comparable results. However, the setup of the counts diverged in certain key aspects, such as type and number of services included, previous counting experience, planning decisions, or practical implementation. This raises the question to which extent outcomes of the counts reflect the current homelessness situation or are a byproduct of contextual factors affecting the comparability of results between cities.

To tackle these issues, I describe the local networks of services for PEH in Salzburg and Innsbruck, compare political environments and strategies to combat homelessness, detail the approaches taken in the scope of the EU Homelessness Counts, and reinterpret results in the light of different contextual factors. By mapping this comparison to the ETHOS Light framework, I draw conclusions how outcomes were affected in each category, which factors proved decisive, and how comparability of results can be enhanced in future counts. Similarities and differences in results in the two cities are substantiated by contrasting output in different ETHOS Light categories with effects of planning decisions, implementation practices, and other contextual factors. Conclusions can be drawn on planning and implementation strategies, on the role of the local network of services for PEH, as well as on the influence of individual actors or organisations. This generates methodological insights on the future design of homelessness counts and can enhance the comparability of results.

Philipp Schnell is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Urban and Regional Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Vienna). He specializes in methods for measuring the extent and profile of homelessness, in research on housing pathways of people experiencing homelessness, and in upstream prevention strategies to combat youth homelessness. He is editor of the International Journal on Homelessness and has drafted a blueprint for a nationwide strategy for measuring homelessness in Austria on behalf of the Austrian Ministry of Social Affairs.

Ákos Surányi and Nóra Teller, HU: New Emerging Data – Lessons from the Budapest Homelessness Data Collection 2024–25 Waves

Empirical data collection on homelessness in Hungary has spanned 28 years, yet several "blind spots" have persisted. These gaps are attributable to several factors: survey fatigue among social workers leading to diminishing response rates; a historical reluctance to engage new partners essential for covering missing ETHOS Light 1 and 3 groups; the need to broaden the scope to include ETHOS Light 5 and 6; and a general lack of resources to incentivize participation and improve data quality. Consequently, Hungarian data results have increasingly been influenced by the "service paradox" within a context of constrained service provision. Simultaneously, however, several key organizations e.g. in the capital city—often operating without city-level coordination—have developed targeted databases and internal assessment tools to move towards evidence-based service design.

The 2024–25 European Homelessness Count project provided the momentum to pilot new measurement methods and include previously uncounted groups in Budapest (2024–25) and Debrecen (2025). This presentation outlines the transition from routine survey methods to a triangulation approach. Key developments include:

• A two-phase street headcount covering the entirety of Budapest (1.7 million inhabitants) and Debrecen (200,000 inhabitants).
• An expanded pool of participating services to extensively complement data on ETHOS Light 3 and pilot data collection for ETHOS Light 5 and 6.
• The first-ever access to central government administrative datasets to cover the shelter population in Budapest.
• Systematic data collection on people living in shacks and tents (a specific ETHOS Light 1 sub-group), a demographic previously overlooked in the capital.

The presentation will discuss the implications of this new data for service design and reflect on how complementary data collection techniques can be effectively combined, even in a resource-scarce landscape, to produce reliable data for robust service needs assessments.

Ákos Surányi is a trained social worker who served in various shelter services before joining the Budapest City Hall, where he coordinated the city’s homelessness strategy. Since 2025, he has served as the Director of the Regional Dispatch Services at the Shelter Foundation. He has played a pivotal role in designing and implementing data collection for ETHOS Light 1 categories within the Budapest branch of the European Homelessness Count Project.

Nóra Teller, PhD, is a sociologist at the Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest, and a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness. She served as a coordinator and lead researcher for the European Homelessness Count Project. Her research focuses on housing inclusion policies, segregation, and homelessness

Chair: Freek Spinnewijn, BE

Erin Dej, Carrie Sanders, CA: The Invisibility Trap: The Paradoxical Effect of Policies that Aim to Hide Homelessness

As homelessness becomes increasingly visible in cities across the globe, many municipalities are turning to short-term, punitive approaches to respond to housed neighbours demands that the city 'do something’, often resulting in the further entrenchment in homelessness. 

Drawing on critical criminology and theories of social exclusion and spatial governance, this project examines how efforts to manage the visibility of homelessness paradoxically intensifies its presence and deepens marginalization. We conceptualize these dynamics as an invisibility trap, wherein policies and practices designed to remove homelessness from public view instead exacerbate stigma, distress, and barriers to exiting homelessness, ultimately making it more visible.

These findings are based on 86 interviews across 3 mid-size case study cities in southern Ontario, Canada. Interview participants included people experiencing homelessness, service providers, concerned community members, and law enforcement. In this presentation, we will share findings from our visual report and discuss the nature of the dominant narratives about homelessness, the cycle of complaints and criminalization, and a call for practical, dignity-centred solutions that foster empathy and community building for all. Specifically, we identify five key paradoxes: (1) toxic media narratives that sensationalize encampments and disorder; (2) resistance to supportive infrastructure, leaving people with “nowhere to go”; (3) cyclical displacement or “moving them along,” that increases visibility and disruption; (4) over-regulation of non-criminal activity; and (5) social exclusion that heightens stigma and visibility. In each case, attempts to invisibilize homelessness amplify public attention, entrench negative narratives, disrupt service access, and worsen health and substance use outcomes.

We offer alternative strategies to respond to homelessness, based on evidence-informed approaches and a human rights lens that expands supportive infrastructure, invests in outreach, and reshapes public narratives. By identifying perceptions susceptible to change and creating opportunities for dialogue, this research offers pathways to bridge divides, foster empathy, and strengthen community resilience.

Erin Dej is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has been studying homelessness for the past 15 years, guided by the lived experts she works with. Erin's research focuses on the social exclusion of unhoused people, including the criminalization of homelessness, and building public empathy towards homelessness. She is the author of A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada (UBC) and co-creator of the documentary Bridging Divides: Voices & Visions on Homelessness in Mid-Size Cities.

Carrie Sanders is a Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Research on Security Practices at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is the co-principal investigator on the NIMBY to Neighbour research project that created the Bridging Divides : Voices & visions on homelessness in Mid-Size Cities documentary. Her research focuses broadly on practices and technologies used to address community safety and human security. Her research has been published in high impact, international journals such as:  Gender & Society; British Journal of Criminology; and Policing & Society and has received national funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Councils of Canada

Nur Kipcak, TR: Being Homeless in Istanbul, Staying in Mosques: Pollution, Sacredness, and Common Space

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Istanbul, this study examines homelessness at the intersection of urban exclusion, pollution, and sacred space. It is estimated that between 7,000 and 10,000 people experience homelessness, including unregistered populations. Temporary shelters are isolated from urban life and offer limited access to social ties or employment. In this context, the small Kaab Mosque in a low-income neighborhood of Istanbul emerges as an alternative space of shelter and care.

The theoretical framework positions the study at the intersection of anthropology and critical urban studies. Building on Mary Douglas’s analysis of purity and pollution, the study shows how homelessness and addiction are associated with “pollution” in interpretations of sacred space in Turkey. Engaging the concept of liminality developed by van Gennep and Victor Turner and elaborated by Stavros Stavrides, the study argues that the Kaab Mosque functions as a negotiated common space, where spatial hierarchies of sacred/impure and male/female are suspended.

Methodologically, the research is based on participant observation and unstructured in-depth interviews conducted over an eighteen-month period (May 2022–October 2023) at the Kaab Mosque. Interviews were carried out with homeless and addicts, the imam, volunteers, and social workers, accompanied by ethnographic field notes. Since November 2024, the study has continued through periodic follow-up visits.

The findings show that the Kaab Mosque operates as a space of care rather than control. Homelessness is shaped by factors, including bereavement, poverty, aging, inadequate pensions, and addiction. Acknowledging individual experiences, unconditional shelter, food, and rest are provided in the mosque during the initial days, followed by tailored support such as healthcare access, employment assistance, social support, and mediation with public institutions. Functioning as a temporary transit space, the mosque challenges dominant notions of pollution and gendered spatial norms, revealing the potential of sacred spaces as informal welfare infrastructures.

Nur Kıpçak is an anthropologist working on religion, space, gender, and urban marginality. She holds a PhD based on long-term ethnographic research on gendered experiences in Istanbul mosques and has conducted extensive fieldwork on sacred spaces as sites of everyday negotiation and exclusion. Her recent research focuses on homelessness and urban exclusion in contemporary Istanbul, with particular attention to sacred spaces as commons and sites of encounter. She teaches sociology of space at Istanbul Medipol University and is currently developing the participatory exhibition Being a Woman in the Mosque.

Santiago Zorrilla de San Martín, Soledad Camejo, Gerardo Sarachu, Uruguay: A Transformation from Below: Coordinating Committee 19A. An Alliance Between Homelessness Collectives, Unions, Neighbors, and Organizations Fighting Homelessness in Uruguay

In Uruguay, the number of beds available for the homeless has grown exponentially in recent years, increasing from 2,650 to 8,600 between 2020 and 2026. These programs have been characterized by a residual assistance model that focuses on short-term intervention and struggles to coordinate with the rest of the social protection system. Those implementing the programs report precarious contracts, frequent delays in salary payments, and very limited resources to meet the multiple and contradictory expectations placed on their work by neighbors and shelter users, further undermining the legitimacy of an already devalued endeavor.

Based on fieldwork conducted through participant observation, we propose to present a specific case of grassroots organizing in the city of Montevideo. In the tangle of tensions between actors that the social assistance system presents in its opposing positions, the Coordinadora 19A emerged in 2024, coinciding with August 19th, the Latin American Day of Struggle for People Experiencing Homelessness. This alliance brings together groups of people experiencing homelessness, organizations, unions, academics, and neighbors who unite to fight against homelessness and denounce the precarious and insufficient responses of public policy. It exemplifies the political engagement of popular sectors that transcends the governmental logic of assistance management and recreates alternative forms of collective action in the struggle for the vindication of rights.

Santiago Zorrilla de San Martín holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Work and a Master's degree in Social Work from the University of the Republic (UDELAR, Uruguay) and is a PhD candidate in Social Work at the National University of La Plata (UNLP, Argentina). For 18 years, he worked as a social worker in social assistance programs. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Social Sciences (FCS-UDELAR) and a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Trajectories of Homelessness, where he conducts teaching, research, and university outreach activities on the topic.

Soledad Camejo is a social worker, a graduate of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the Republic (UDELAR, Uruguay). She holds a Master's degree in Public Policy and a PhD in Public Policy from the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA, Brazil). She has worked as a social worker in social assistance programs. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at the Faculty of Social Sciences (FCS-UDELAR) and a member of the Interdisciplinary Center on Trajectories of Homelessness, where she conducts teaching, research, and university outreach activities on the topic.

Gerardo Sarachu holds a degree in Social Work from the University of the Republic (UDELAR), a Master's degree in Social Work from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and is a doctoral candidate in Social Sciences with a specialization in Social Work at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of the Republic. He is an adjunct professor in the Central Extension and Community Engagement Service of the Vice-Rectorate for Extension and Comprehensive Programs at UDELAR. He co-coordinates the Interdisciplinary Center on Homelessness at UDELAR.

Chair: Boróka Fehér, HU

Alba García-Cid, Itziar Gandarias Goikoetxea and Miguel Ángel Navarro Lashayas, ES: Autonomy and Support: Professional Dilemmas in Services for Women Experiencing Homelessness

Feminist research has long highlighted the limitations of traditional residential services, which are often highly regulated and historically masculinized environments that fail to address the complex trajectories of women affected by violence, mental health issues, and substance use. In response, recent policy initiatives have promoted accommodation models based on greater autonomy, lower access requirements, and community-based support. However, little research has examined how these transformations reshape professional practice. This study explores how professionals working in services for women experiencing residential exclusion and gender-based violence interpret and adapt to new low-threshold housing models.

The study draws on qualitative data collected within the evaluation of five pilot housing programs for women survivors of gender-based violence in the Basque Country (Spain). The analysis presented here focuses exclusively on the perspectives of professionals involved in the implementation of the new model. Data include three focus groups and nine in depth interviews with technical staff from social inclusion and gender violence services. The material was transcribed and analyzed through thematic analysis.

Findings reveal that the shift toward low-threshold housing models generates a profound reconfiguration of professional roles. Professionals report a perceived loss of control  and reduced capacity for in situ containment, as the new model limits their daily presence in residential spaces. This distance, while designed to avoid institutional intrusion and promote autonomy, also creates uncertainty and reduces access to everyday information about residents’ situations, making it more difficult to build and sustain relational bonds. In addition, professionals highlight significant gaps in training and institutional support, particularly in relation to trauma-informed approaches, gender-based violence, and intervention in highly complex contexts.

Overall, the findings suggest that while low-threshold housing models offer important opportunities to transform institutional responses to women’s residential exclusion, their implementation requires substantial changes in professional training, organizational support, and reflexive spaces for practitioners.

Alba García-Cid, Itziar Gandarias Goikoetxea and Miguel Ángel Navarro Lashayas are associate professors in the University of Deusto and members of the Deusto Psychosocial research team. Their work focuses on human vulnerability, care and social rights, with particular attention to intersectionality, discrimination and violence, and the psychosocial dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion. Their research addresses homelessness—especially hidden homelessness—, gendered violence, and feminist perspectives in social intervention and public policy.

Kanako Nakano, Akane Okabe and Yoshifumi Kami, Nao Kurokawa, Japan: How Have Invisible Women Been Captured? Homeless Policy and a Shelter Case Study in a Mid-Sized Japanese City

Japan's homeless policy has long centred on visibly rough-sleeping individuals, the majority of whom are middle-aged men living alone in urban public spaces. Although legislation does not formally distinguish by gender, the practical configuration of shelters, support centres, and welfare facilities has been predominantly male-oriented. As a result, women who lose stable housing tend to be re-classified before they reach the homeless policy frame — absorbed instead into domestic violence services, single-mother support, psychiatric care, or, as some studies suggest, informal arrangements such as live-in sex work. The consequence is not that fewer women experience homelessness, but that female housing loss has been systematically made invisible through institutional re-categorisation.

This study examines the concept of "capture" in Japanese homeless policy across three analytical layers — (1) legal and policy definitions, (2) administrative operation, and (3) street-level practice — drawing on Lipsky's framework of street-level bureaucracy. The central case is an emergency shelter established in a mid-sized Japanese city (population approximately 1.42 million) following the 2008 financial crisis, which operated without gender or age restrictions as a crisis-driven measure rather than a deliberate policy reform. Within a support landscape that was otherwise male-only, this shelter created a temporary opening through which women became visible to the system.

Methods include analysis of administrative records on shelter users, case-based examination of female users whose situations fell outside standard policy categories, and a focus group interview with social workers who staffed the shelter. Fieldwork is ongoing.

Preliminary findings suggest that women's capture occurred not through intentional definitional change, but as an unintended outcome of emergency response logic. This case illuminates how the conditions of capture can shift at the operational level while formal definitions remain unchanged — a dynamic with implications for how homelessness is defined, measured, and governed beyond Japan.

Kanako Nakano is a Professor in the Faculty of Sociology at Otani University, Japan. She began her career as a social worker, including direct practice at an emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness. Her primary research interest lies in social work theory — particularly the relationship between professional practice and institutional constraints. Building on this foundation, she is currently engaged in a collaborative study examining the institutional invisibility of women within Japanese homeless policy, with a focus on how the conditions of "capture" operate across legal, administrative, and street-level dimensions.

Akane Okabe is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Welfare, Faculty of Social Welfare at Bukkyo University, Japan. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Ritsumeikan University. She is a leading scholar in Japan on youth support studies. Her research focuses on the difficulties faced by young people in their daily lives, with a particular emphasis on supporting young people, including young women, in the process of leaving their family of origin and building independent lives.

Yoshifumi Kami is a Professor in the Department of Social Welfare, Faculty of Social Welfare at Bukkyo University, Japan. He began his career as a practitioner at the Nishinari Labor and Welfare Center in the Kamagasaki district of Osaka, one of Japan's largest day-laborer communities, where he worked from 1991 to 2001. His research interests include poverty, homelessness, and social welfare policy, with a particular focus on the lived experiences of people in economic hardship, young people and single-parent households facing poverty, and the question of how support systems can effectively reach those most in need.

Nao Kurokawa is a Social Worker at the Social Service Association Work Center, Japan. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Ritsumeikan University. Prior to her current position, she worked as a Specialist in the Daily Life Independence Support Program at the Kyoto Council of Social Welfare. Her research interests include social welfare labor, the training of social welfare professionals, and the collaboration between research and practice in the pursuit of livelihood security.

Daniela Leonardi, IT: When Home Is Missing: Gender Norms and the Stigma of Women’s Homelessness

In many Southern European contexts, especially in Italy, dominant cultural imaginaries associate femininity with domesticity, care and motherhood. Feminist scholarship has shown how the home functions not only as a material dwelling but also as a key site in the social organization of gendered identities (Nowicki 2025; Blunt 2005). Within this normative framework, the figure of the homeless woman represents a disruption, as the absence of a home challenges expectations that position women as moral custodians of the domestic sphere.

Despite extensive research on homelessness, the phenomenon has largely been conceptualized through frameworks reflecting predominantly male trajectories or through policy-oriented approaches. Feminist scholars have shown that women’s homelessness is often less recognised and shaped by specific gendered dynamics, such as stigma, safety concerns and pressures to maintain forms of respectability (Mayock and Bretherton 2016). Less attention, however, has been devoted to the cultural and moral meanings that homelessness acquires when experienced by women in contexts where domestic stability remains a central marker of femininity.

My research addresses this gap by examining how gender norms related to domesticity shape the ways women experience and narrate homelessness. Drawing on more than ten years of qualitative research on housing precarity - particularly homelessness, its most severe form – the analysis explores how women negotiate stigma and position themselves in relation to dominant ideals of womanhood and respectability (Skeggs 1997).

The presentation argues that women’s homelessness should be understood not only as housing deprivation but also as a disruption of gendered moral expectations surrounding motherhood, care and social worth. By foregrounding women’s narratives, the analysis develops a gendered understanding of the moral economy of home, showing how the absence of a home becomes a site where femininity, respectability and social legitimacy are internalized, negotiated and sometimes contested. 

Daniela Leonardi, PhD in Applied Sociology and Social Research Methodology is a research fellow at the University of Torino. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Italian Federation of Organizations working with homeless people (fio.PSD). She was awarded the Young Professional Grant (Fondazione Roberto Franceschi, Milano) for the PhD project “Social workers and policies for the homeless. Dilemmas, tensions, restrictions”. Among her publications: Leonardi D., (2023) Housing and the welfare system in Italy, in ‹‹The Routledge Handbook of Housing and Welfare››, Grander M. & Stephens M. (eds.), Routledge. 

Chair: Nicholas Pleace, UK

Anna-Laura Marana, Evelien Demaerschalk and Koen Hermans, BE: Upstream: Early Intervention to Prevent Youth Homelessness and School Dropout in Flanders (Belgium)

Youth homelessness is a pressing yet under-recognized issue in Belgium, where approximately 20% of people experiencing homelessness are aged 16 to 25. Pathways into homelessness are often shaped by complex family dynamics, conflict, and broader structural disadvantages, underscoring the need for early and preventive interventions. The Upstream project, originally developed in Australia, responds to this need by focusing on the early detection of risks for homelessness and school dropout among secondary school students. Through a brief school-based screening questionnaire, at-risk students are identified and, where needed, connected to youth welfare services for tailored support. 

This study presents findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of the Flemish implementation across ten secondary schools in Antwerp, Mechelen, and the Kempen. In total, 1.213 students completed the questionnaire, of whom one in three (n = 385) were identified as vulnerable and eligible for the Upstream project. Within this group, 13.9% were at risk of homelessness and/or school dropout, 13.4% at high risk of homelessness, and 4.4% were currently experiencing homelessness. Despite effective identification, 47.7% of these students did not respond to outreach. Among those reached, 24.2% engaged in a support trajectory, including many without prior contact with services.

Findings show that Upstream reaches a substantial group of previously unseen youth and provides accessible, low-threshold support. The physical presence of Upstream workers in schools, combined with professional confidentiality and voluntary participation, fosters trust and engagement. While support mainly strengthens emotional well-being and openness, more structural changes remain limited, likely due to the relatively short duration of the study and follow-up period.

The study highlights the added value of school-based screening and intersectoral collaboration, while pointing to the need for sustained on-site presence of Upstream workers, stronger connections to external services and informal networks, and adequate structural funding to ensure longer-term impact.

Anna-Laura Marana is a researcher at LUCAS KU Leuven (Belgium). Her work focuses on youth vulnerability and homelessness. She is particularly interested in early detection strategies, intersectoral collaboration, and the development and evaluation of innovative support models for at-risk adolescents. Within the Upstream project in Flanders, she contributes to both quantitative and qualitative research on youth well-being and school engagement.

Evelien Demaerschalk is a researcher at LUCAS KU Leuven (Belgium). Her main research interests include homelessness and social housing. She is currently involved in research on homelessness counts in Flanders, night shelter services, and European homelessness.

Koen Hermans is Associate Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at KU Leuven. At LUCAS, KU Leuven's Centre for Care Research and Consultancy, he is responsible for developing the research domain of welfare, poverty, and social exclusion. His research agenda focuses on measuring homelessness, homelessness trajectories, and access to social rights. He is a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness.

Fernando Fajardo-Bullón, Igor Esnaola, Victor Leñador Albano, ES: Upstream Spain: A Pilot Study on Early Detection and Prevention of Homelessness

Homelessness in Spain has increased significantly in recent years, with a 24.5% rise between 2012 and 2022 according to the National Statistics Institute (INE, 2023). This trend is further confirmed by a 57% increase in the number of people accommodated in homeless shelters between 2022 and 2024 (INE, 2025). These figures, consistent with night counts conducted in major Spanish cities, highlight the urgent need to critically reassess current intervention and prevention models, as well as social policies.

In response, this study presents the initial phase of a pilot research project aimed at advancing early detection and prevention of homelessness within the general population in Spain. The project draws on evidence-based approaches developed in international countries such as Australia, Canada, USA or the United Kingdom. Its theoretical framework adopts a life-course perspective, focusing on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), educational conditions, and early-life stressors as key determinants of homelessness trajectories.

A mixed-methods design was employed. First, a scoping review examined the relationship between ACEs and homelessness. Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals experiencing homelessness in centres in Extremadura and Seville, exploring perceived life events and pathways into homelessness. Third, the project introduces an innovative early detection model in school settings, using digital technologies to identify academic and psychosocial risk factors among adolescents.

The presentation integrates these components by analysing early-life risk factors, including emotional and educational conditions, and by presenting the upstream prevention methodology developed within the project. Preliminary findings highlight new adverse childhood experiences and risk factors that may be more relevant than traditionally identified stressful events. The model is being implemented for the first time in Spain and is supported by a funded project (2025–2028) on youth mental health and social inclusion in Extremadura.

Fernando Fajardo-Bullón is the Director of the University Institute for Educational Research and Foresight. Representative of Cluster 5 “Education Sciences for Sustainable Development” -EUGREEN ALLIANCE. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at the University of Extremadura (Spain). He was representative of Spain in the European Action CA15218 - Measuring homelessness in Europe and a current member of the observatory of the social reality of the NGO Caritas Mérida-Badajoz. He has been part of the experts committee in collaborations with the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030. His field of study is physical and mental well-being, addictions and stressful events experienced by homeless people along their vital life.

Igor Esnaola is a full psychology professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). He has supervised six doctoral theses, and has participated in twenty research projects in total. Likewise, he participated in two European projects (COST actions): one entitled “Measuring homelessness in Europe” and the other one “Researcher Mental Health”. He has three research evaluation periods (sexenios) and in total he has published 32 WoS papers with JCR (of which 18 are in the first two quartiles, 56%), two books and four book chapters. In the field of management, he has been editor (2008-2012), deputy editor (2012-2013) and director (2013-continued) of Revista de Psicodidáctica. Finally, he has been the director of the department of Developmental and Educational Psychology since 2020. 

Victor Leñador Albano holds a degree in Psychology from the University of Extremadura and subsequently undertook postgraduate studies at the same institution, specifically the Master’s Degree in Social Sciences Research and the Master’s Degree in Secondary School Teacher Training. He has published several papers in scientific journals, two of which are indexed in the JCR. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Psychology and works as an educational counsellor in a psycho-pedagogical educational guidance team in Mérida. 

Chair: Eoin O’Sullivan

This is a special session with a book presentation and reflections by two critical readers, Eoin O’Sullivan, UK and Bálint Misetics, HU

Jan Weckwerth & Timo Weishaupt, DE: “Homelessness in Affluent Societies: Linking Theory and Praxis”

In this session, Jan Weckwerth and Timo Weishaupt present their recently published edited volume, while Eoin O’Sullivan and Bálint Misetics offer insightful reflections and ask critical questions. The edited volume comprises 14 chapters, including an introduction by the editors that provides a concise review of the relevant literature, develops a novel theoretical framework, and offers a brief overview of the individual chapters in the book. In the introduction, which will be the focal point of this session, the editors argue that existing explanations of homelessness typically focus on individual factors, structural causes, or their combination. What is often missing is a comprehensive account of how these factors interact, while also taking into consideration when and how welfare states intervene (un)successfully. Inspired by Bourdieu’s praxeological approach and applying a critical social policy lens, the authors of the introduction have developed a new integrative framework that systematically considers three contexts: (1) individual resources, habitual dispositions, and biographical experiences as the individual context; (2) intended and unintended mechanisms of (partial) exclusion within municipal welfare-state services as the institutional context; and (3) the influence of local housing markets and the neoliberalization of public spaces as the (spatial-)structural context – along with the interactions between these contexts. Furthermore, we consider third-sector organizations as intermediaries, operating at the intersection of these contexts and therefore as crucial intervening actors.

In the following chapters - which also include chapters by each of the editors on homeless women (Weishaupt), homeless migrants (Hinrichs) and sink estates (Weckwerth) - the volume brings together a range of scholars and practitioners from various disciplines and countries. Presenting rich empirical case studies from Europe and the Americas with cutting-edge policy examples, the authors illustrate how local policymakers and third-sector organizations try and, in some instances, fail to prevent and overcome homelessness and what could be done differently.

Jan Weckwerth is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Göttingen. He received his PhD from the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. His research interests include social inequality, in particular class and lifestyle analyses, as well as urban sociology, housing and homelessness, and the sociology of culture and film.

 Eoin O'Sullivan, IE is Professor in Social Policy in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness since 1992, and editor of the European Journal of Homelessness since 2009. Recent collaborative and co-edited books include Ending Homelessness? The Contrasting Experiences of Denmark, Finland, and Ireland (2020), Reimagining Homelessness (2020), Handbook of Homelessness Research (2025) and Understanding Homelessness in Ireland Since Independence: Decades in the Making (2026).

Bálint Misetics is a social policy scholar and practitioner based in Budapest. He graduated in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford and obtained his PhD in Social Policy from Eötvös Loránd University. He is currently working as Senior Advisor to the Mayor of Budapest on Housing and Social Policy, and was the author of the municipality’s new homelessness strategy. 

Timo Weishaupt is Professor of Sociology at the University of Göttingen. Previously, he held positions as postdoctoral fellow and assistant professor at the University of Mannheim. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. From 2020 to 2024, he led a major research project on homelessness funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). His recent research focuses on homelessness, social policy, and welfare states.

Chair: Volker Busch-Geertsema, DE

Jonathan Martin, IE: Modern Slavery in the Shadows: An Evaluation of Vulnerabilities, Exploitation, and Patterns of Coercion; Housing First in Rural Ireland

While Housing First has demonstrated strong housing retention outcomes across Europe, less is known about how the model operates in rural and small-urban contexts, particularly regarding harm reduction and gender-responsive services. Responding to this literature gap, this study examines the implementation of Housing First in Ireland’s Northwest, a rural region characterised by limited-service infrastructure and dispersed populations. 

Drawing on thirteen in-depth qualitative interviews with frontline practitioners across housing and addiction services, this case study explores how Housing First interacts with Ireland’s National Drugs Strategy and harm-reduction supports. The analysis is informed by two theories: (1) the Advocacy Coalition Framework, which examines how competing policy beliefs shape frontline practices. (2) International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy serve as a benchmark for assessing Ireland’s National Drug Strategy against human rights norms. 

The findings indicate that (1) although Housing First is effective in sustaining tenancies, its broader harm-reduction objectives are constrained by structural service gaps, including limited housing, detoxification services, dual-diagnosis support, and transport infrastructure. (2) Women and LGBTQI+ individuals were identified as facing vulnerabilities due to the absence of gender-responsive accommodation and services. (3) Early evidence indicates that persons experiencing homelessness, particularly those in situations of hidden homelessness in rural settings, may be exposed to forms of exploitation in which shelter and substances are used to facilitate sexual exploitation, and in which individuals are coerced into criminal activity to repay drug-related debts. In some instances, these patterns of coercion, dependency, and control may amount to modern slavery.

These findings highlight how Housing First's effectiveness in rural contexts is shaped by the wider policy and service environment, with implications for European housing and drug policy. Future avenues of research may include exploring the relationship between homelessness, substance dependence, and forms of exploitation consistent with debt bondage and modern slavery.

Jonathan Martin is a PhD candidate in Socio-Legal Studies at Atlantic Technological University (ATU), Sligo, Republic of Ireland. His research focuses on homelessness, human rights in drug policy, and the implementation of Housing First in rural and regional contexts in Ireland. His doctoral work examines modern slavery within homeless populations, with particular attention to exploitation, debt bondage, and coercion linked to substance dependency. He holds a bachelor's degree in Sociology and Politics, and an MA by Research, focused on Drug Policy and human rights. He works as a social care worker in residential services for young people with intellectual disabilities. 

Lisete Cordeiro and Ana Maria Oliveira, PT: Housing First in Portugal: A National Analysis of Programme Fidelity and Implications for Community Integration

Housing First has become a key policy and practice approach in addressing homelessness across Europe, grounded in the recognition of housing as a fundamental human right and a prerequisite for social inclusion. Evidence suggests that higher fidelity to the model is associated with improved outcomes, particularly regarding housing stability and community integration.

In Portugal, Housing First programmes have expanded over the past decade, contributing to the consolidation of this approach within national homelessness strategies. However, there is still limited  knowledge regarding how these programmes are implemented at a national level and how they promote community integration among participants.

This study is part of an ongoing PhD research project in Social Work that aims to analyse the specificities of Housing First implementation in Portugal and to identify practices that promote community integration among people experiencing homelessness. Within this broader framework, the present paper focuses on programme fidelity as a key analytical dimension.

The research is based on a survey administered to all identified Housing First programmes in the country, using a standardized fidelity assessment tool previously applied and validated in the Portuguese context (Duarte et al., 2019). The analysis addresses core dimensions such as housing choice, separation of housing and support, recovery orientation, and strengths-based practices.

Preliminary findings indicate variations in fidelity across programmes, reflecting both alignment with core principles and context-specific adaptations. These results provide important insights into how fidelity shapes programme implementation and contributes to understanding the conditions that support community integration.

Lisete Cordeiro is co-founder and Executive director of InPulsar, a non-profit organization working with people in situations of vulnerability. She has been actively involved in the field of homelessness and was responsible for the implementation of a Housing First program in Leiria (Morada Certa | Leiria Housing First). She also has experience in training and knowledge-sharing activities and completed the Housing First Train-the-Trainer program at the Housing First Europe Hub in 2025. Currently a PhD student in Social Work in an inter-university doctoral programme between the Faculty of Human Sciences (FCH-UCP) and the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra (FPCE-UC).

Ana Maria Oliveira holds a PhD in Social Work by Universidade Católica Portuguesa coordinates the Master and the PhD in Social Work. She also coordinates the Post-Graduation of Evaluation in Programs and Social Projects, the   Post-Graduation of Artistic Practices and Social Inclusion, the Post-Graduation Management of Projects in Cooperation for Development and the Post-Graduation in Social Responsibility and Sustainability. As a researcher at the CRC-W, she is currently engaged in the “CApS Project - Catholic University and Service Learning: Innovation and Social Responsibility” and she has also been involved in Service-Learning (SL) projects in social and interdisciplinary work. Her research focuses on areas of social intervention, including families, children and young people, and vulnerable populations. She also conducts research on social intervention models and methodologies, particularly the Strengths Based Approach. She is a member of the "Arts-based Research" and "Service User Involvement" research groups of the European Social Work Research Association and a member of the European Evaluation Society.

Chair: Mike Allen, IE

Laure-lise Robben, Jef Timmermans, Lore Dewanckel, Nicolas Jacquet, Martin Wagener, Griet Roets, Jean-François Orianne & Koen Hermans, BE: Homelessness as an Administrative-Access problem: Lessons from Belgium’s COVID-19 Policies

The COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed visibility to people experiencing homelessness (PEH), prompting rapid emergency measures to reduce health risks and safeguard vulnerable populations. In Belgium, these included new funding streams, temporary accommodation programs, adapted service delivery, eviction moratoria, and procedural relaxations in welfare administration. Yet, the question remains whether these interventions shifted homelessness governance in lasting ways, or if they were exceptional responses to an exceptional crisis. 

This article examines Belgium’s COVID-19 homelessness policies through the lens of Carol Bacchi (2009, 2010)’s “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” (WPR), by conducting a conventional content analysis of policy documents and interviews with policy actors across multiple governance levels. We identify two dominant framings of homelessness during COVID-19. 

The first, widely observed internationally (e.g. Parsell et al., 2022), casts PEH as a public health risk: unable to self-isolate, adhere to curfews or practice hygiene, and thus both “at risk” and a “risk to others.” This framing legitimized e.g. short-term expansions of shelter capacity, but left structural housing inequalities unaddressed. The second, more academically novel, framing positions homelessness as an administrative-access problem. In this perspective, the problem is situated within bureaucratic frictions – such as address registration requirements, cohabitation rules, and slowed municipal and welfare procedures - that can block or delay access to essential benefits and rights. In response, crisis responses introduced temporary burden-reduction practices, including simplified evidentiary demands, tolerance measures, flexible interpretation of rules, and eased access to income support and shelter, which helped reduce learning, compliance, and psychological costs for welfare recipients. However, these adaptations were uneven across municipalities and were largely reversed once the emergency urgency and related funding receded. 

The Belgian case thus highlights the tensions between short-term emergency responsiveness and the structural institutionalization of equitable access, offering lessons for embedding rights-based approaches into future crisis governance.

Laure-lise Robben is a postdoctoral researcher at LUCAS, KU Leuven (Belgium). Her main research interests include homelessness, human and social rights, vulnerability, and poverty.

Lore Dewanckel is a Parttime Doctor Assistant working at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University (Belgium) and part-time Postdoctoral Researcher with a PhD in Social Work, currently working on the Belspo Post-Covid project PANHOME researching trajectories of homeless people and adaptations of local welfare networks during the pandemic.

Nicolas Jacquet is a sociologist, researcher and lecturer at the University of Liège (Belgium). He completed a joint doctoral thesis between the University of Liège and the University of Ghent on childhood poverty, entitled ‘The erosion of social protection principles: qualitative research on the role of social work in the lives of citizens in precarious situations’. Since March 2024, he has been conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Liège and the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve on the issue of homelessness during the Covid period.

Jef Timmermans is a researcher at LUCAS, KULeuven (Belgium). His main research interests include social housing, homelessness, squatting and social work. Currently he is conducting research on homelessness during the Covid crisis in the Belspo Post-Covid project PANHOME. 

Marina Sánchez Cuesta, ES: Public Perceptions, Structural Determinants, and Policy Implications of Homelessness in Spain

This study offers an in-depth examination of public perceptions, structural determinants, and policy implications of homelessness in Spain, adopting a rights-based theoretical framework. Rather than viewing homelessness as an individual failure or an inevitable social phenomenon, the report conceptualizes it as a severe violation of fundamental rights and as a condition primarily driven by structural factors—housing insecurity, income instability, barriers faced by migrants, and limited access to essential services. This framing aligns with contemporary European approaches that emphasize systemic, housingled solutions.

Methodologically, the analysis draws on a nationwide online survey conducted by 40dB in June 2025 with a representative sample of 1,500 adults in Spain. The survey explores public beliefs about the causes of homelessness, emotional responses to encounters with people experiencing homelessness, attitudes toward policy measures, and willingness to support transformative interventions. Survey data are contrasted with official statistics (when they are available) and prior research to identify gaps between perception and reality.

Findings show a significant mismatch between public understanding and the lived experiences of people affected by homelessness. While a majority of respondents attribute homelessness to individual factors such as addiction, people experiencing homelessness identify structural issues—evictions, unaffordable housing, income loss, and administrative barriers—as the primary causes. The study also reveals the scale of “hidden homelessness,” with millions reporting experiences far beyond official counts. Emotional responses suggest strong social empathy, and more than 80% of the population considers homelessness a societal problem requiring public resources. There is broad support for housing-based approaches, reducing bureaucratic barriers, and prioritizing early intervention strategies. At the same time, the report highlights the persistence of aporophobia, though punitive or exclusionary measures receive little social support.

Overall, the results demonstrate strong public endorsement for transitioning toward housing first, rights-based, and community-integrated models capable of reducing homelessness effectively and sustainably.

Marina Sánchez Cuesta is currently the Coordinator of the Policy Advocacy and Communications Area within the Cabinet for Transformation and Advocacy at HOGAR SÍ, where she also leads the HATEnto Observatory. Her professional career has developed in the fields of policy advocacy, social intervention, intercultural mediation, and human rights defense at both national and international levels. She has worked in contexts related to homelessness, migration, humanitarian emergencies, and structural violence, supporting individuals and communities in highly vulnerable situations. She currently focuses on promoting a rights-based approach to homelessness, working to transform public understanding and responses to this reality. Her work is aimed at driving systemic change within homelessness services and policies, advancing structural solutions that guarantee access to housing and rights. In parallel, she contributes to strengthening public policies, supporting people in vulnerable situations, and using strategic communication as a key tool to challenge stigma and foster social change

Chair: Eoin O’Sullivan, IE

Angela Chieppa, Federico Di Leo, Nicoletta Ferrante, Francesca Inglese, Marija Mamolo, Francesca Scambia, Agnese Ciulla, Caterina Cortese, Michele Ferraris, IT: A New Survey on Homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities: Organizational and Methodological Challenges and First Enumeration Results

The survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Central Municipalities of Metropolitan Cities (CMMC) was conducted in January 2026. The overall coordination of the survey is led by Istat in collaboration with fio.PSD (Italian Federation of Organizations working with Homeless People) and the support of the 14 Municipalities. The survey design involved experts from several Istat Directorates, including methodology, social statistics, demographic statistics and population census, and data collection, and experts on homelessness. Moreover, an inter-institutional technical and scientific committee is established to support the organisation of the survey.

The survey is embedded in the context of the Permanent Population and Housing Census, contributing to measuring severe adult marginality and it represents a first step in the development of a new ISTAT information system dedicated to extreme poverty. 

The survey has two main objectives: (1) to estimate the size of homelessness across the 14 Municipalities; and (2) to provide a statistical framework for analysing socio-demographic characteristics.

Methodologically, the study is based on two integrated and sequential phases: a Point-in-Time count in public spaces and overnight shelter services, followed by a sample survey for thematic analysis. This design ensures full integration between the size of the phenomenon and the analysis of its characteristics.

The target population includes individuals living on the street or in low threshold accommodations, as well as those using overnight shelter services, which cover the first two ETHOS categories.

Fieldwork involved metropolitan coordinators, survey reference persons, and volunteers (6,536 of which 65% were women).

The count identified 10,037 homeless persons aged 18 and over: 55.4% were in overnight shelters and 44.6% were counted on the street. Women represented a minority within the homeless population. In overnight shelters the majority of homeless persons was aged 31-60 (61.3%). Among those on the street, this percentage increased up to 73.2%.

Angela Chieppa is a senior researcher and statistician at Istat, working in the Directorate for Population Census. She has extensive experience in official population statistics and has played a key role in the development of the Italian Permanent Population Census, an innovative, multi-source system delivering census figures through the integration of administrative and survey data. She is a leading member of the Istat team responsible for the design, governance, and data processing of the national survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities.

Federico Di Leo is economist with a PhD in political economy and currently Research Director at the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat). He is responsible of the Research Line: “Revision of the Absolute Poverty Methodology and Survey on Extreme Poverty”. He has been nominated by Istat Sole Responsible of the Procedure for the Survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities.

Nicoletta Ferrante is a senior technologist at Istat in the Directorate for Data Collection. She is an expert in the organisation, design, and conduct of statistical surveys, primarily on families.  She had a key role in the organisation of the first round of the Italian Permanent Population Census and is currently planning the organisation of the Italian national survey on the foreign population. She is a leading member of the Istat team responsible for the design, governance, and data processing of the national survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities.

Francesca Inglese is a senior researcher and methodologist at Istat, working in the Directorate for Methodology and Statistical Processes. She coordinates the initiative focused on “Methods for the detection and estimation of rare and elusive populations” (RSC people, LGBT+, Homeless people) and is an expert in: sampling methods for finite populations within classical theory and indirect sampling theory; sampling techniques based on social ties or the places frequented by the target population; complex inferential processes related to the presence of non-sampling errors (e.g., total non-response, selection errors); integration and processing of data from non-traditional sources (e.g., big data); and methodologies for developing smart surveys. She is a leading member of the Istat team responsible for the design, methodology, planning and implementation, and governance of the national survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities.

 Marija Mamolo is a researcher at Istat (the Italian National Institute of Statistics) in the Directorate for Data Collection and holds a PhD in Demography. Her main activity in Istat involves the planning, organisation, and implementation of data collection in the field of demographic and social statistics. Previously, she worked at research institutes in Italy and abroad. Her research interests mainly focus on population projections, ageing, and fertility. She is a leading member of the Istat team responsible for the design, governance, and data processing of the national survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities.

Francesca Scambia, PhD, is Researcher at Istat. She works in the Directorate for Social Statistics and Welfare. She has been working on the hard-to-reach populations for several years (RSC people, LGBT+, Homeless people). As a leading member of the ISTAT team responsible for the design, governance, and data processing of the national survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities, she has developed and managed the survey in shelter facilities and prepared and edited the questionnaire for thematic analysis. 

Michele Ferraris is Communication officer of the Italian Federation of organizations working with homeless people (fio.PSD). He is responsible for Member relations and relationships with national and european partners. He was National Coordinator of the network activities for the Survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities promoted by Istat. 

Agnese Ciulla is Coordinator of the National Secretariat of the Italian Federation of organizations working with homeless people (fio.PSD). She is Head of the Policy, Planning and Advocacy Unit. She was vice National Coordinator for the Survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities promoted by Istat. 

Caterina Cortese is a sociologist with a PhD in Public Policy Analysis. She is Head of the Analysis, Studies and Europe Unit of the Italian Federation of organizations working with homeless people (fio.PSD). She carries out activities in project design, study and social research on profiles of vulnerability, social rights and access to services, as well as actions to combat poverty and social marginalization (homelessness) and housing exclusion. She was Thematic Expert for the Survey on homelessness in 14 Italian Municipalities promoted by Istat. 

Hermund Urstad and Hilde Hatleskog Zeiner, NO: The National Survey of Homelessness in Norway 2025 - Lessons Learned from a Simplified Survey

The 8th national survey in 2024 of homeless people in Norway was canceled due to lack of approval and exemption from confidentiality from the Directorate of Labor and Welfare. This despite the fact that the surveys have been carried out using the same method since 1996.  The Directorate cites problems related to privacy and confidentiality in social services, as well as requirements in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In addition, there is legal regulation of confidentiality that sets limits on what information can be collected through a survey. After a new review, the Directorate reversed its decision and allowed a simplified mapping in week 48 2025. 

The new simplified mapping survey provides data on the number of homeless people nationally and for the municipalities, and shows an increase in the number of homeless people of 26 percent.  There is also information about members of the household, gender, age, citizenship and place of residence. Distribution of chronic and transitional homelessness and the situations described in ETHOS 1-6. 

On the other hand, there will be limited information that can explain the causes of homelessness and capture new trends. This has also provided the basis for national and local measures and initiatives to combat homelessness over the years. 

In this paper we will discuss findings from the survey and from the evaluation. Do the changes and a requirement for the use of digital forms affect the results? Will the mapping continue to be comparable with the other Nordic countries and the EU's city counts? What information is lost? Based on the OECD Monitoring framework we will discuss the Norwegian survey are other possibilities to gather knowledge of homelessness. Are legislative changes necessary to access the data?

Hermund Urstad works as Senior Adviser in The Norwegian Housing Bank, the main agency for implementing Norwegian social housing policy on the national level. He has a particular responsibility for homelessness statistics, analyses and data collection.

Hilde Hatleskog Zeiner is a senior researcher at NIBR, OsloMet. She was a project member in the 2020 survey of homelessness in Norway and is project manager for the 2024/2025 survey. The national survey of homelessness is initiated by the Housing Bank on behalf of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. The mapping is being carried out by researchers from Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research NIBR, Oslo Metropolitan University, in close collaboration with the Housing Bank.

Magdalena Mostowska, PL: Estimating the Annual Scale of Homelessness in Poland Using Administrative Data

Assessing the scale of homelessness is crucial for evidence-based policymaking. Until now, the only nationwide data on the scale and characteristics of homelessness in Poland has been the point-in-time (PIT) count conducted irregularly by the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. In this paper, I draw on administrative data compiled by Statistics Poland on beneficiaries of social assistance. To date, these data have only been used to estimate homeless mortality (Mostowska et al., forthcoming), but in fact, they are the best source of information on homelessness in Poland. I use this administrative register to estimate the number of people who experience homelessness over the course of a year. I present several estimation strategies. First, I rely directly on the register and information on the duration of benefit receipt and therefore the number of entries and exits per year. Second, I compare the administrative data with the PIT count using shared or comparable variables, such as shelter use, benefit receipt, age, sex, and province. Third, I estimate the number of individuals who never access social assistance using the PIT count and mortality data. Especially using mortality data is innovative and valuable to estimate the extent of a group that does not come in contact with “the system”. By applying multiple estimation approaches, I highlight both the limitations and caveats of each method and demonstrate how they can complement one another. Taken together, these strategies provide a more nuanced and dynamic picture of homelessness in Poland than a one-off point-in-time count.

Magdalena Mostowska is a sociologist, lecturer, and researcher at the Faculty of Geography and Regional Studies at the University of Warsaw. She has completed several research projects on migrant and women’s homelessness in Poland, the EU, and the US, and is currently working on homeless mortality.

Chair: Lars Benjaminsen, DK

Nathalia Garcia, Joana Henriques-Calado and João Gama-Marques, PT: Homelessness as a Dynamic Phenomenon: A 20-Year Longitudinal Study on Clinical and Survival Trajectories

Theoretical framing: Homelessness constitutes a severe public health crisis, characterized by profound social exclusion, high psychiatric and physical morbidity, and significant barriers to accessing mental health services. It is not a homogeneous condition, but rather encompasses heterogeneous trajectories with distinct clinical profiles and survival outcomes. However, longitudinal evidence on how psychiatric patterns and mortality evolve across different durations of homelessness remains limited.

Methods: This study draws on a retrospective cohort of 333 psychiatric patients experiencing homelessness in Lisbon, Portugal, followed over a 20-year period. Data included sociodemographic characteristics, ICD-10 diagnoses, utilization of psychiatric services, and mortality records. Cox survival analyses, ANOVA, and chi-square tests were computed.

Findings: The sample was predominantly male (87.7%), with mean age increasing from 47.2 to 56.1 years over a mean follow-up of nine years, indicating an aging homeless population. A significant diagnostic shift was observed, particularly an increase in organic psychosis (1.5% to 19.2%), suggesting progressive neuropsychiatric deterioration associated with prolonged exposure to street conditions. Overall mortality was 31.2%, with the highest rates  concentrated in intermediate trajectories (1-5 and 5-15 years), highlighting transitional phases as periods of heightened mortality risk. In contrast, individuals with more than 15 years of homelessness exhibited the lowest mortality (14.6%) and older age at death, suggesting a survivor effect despite greater psychiatric comorbidity. Differences in service utilization were observed across trajectories. Long-term homelessness was significantly predicted by psychosis, substance use, and intellectual disability.

Conclusion: Homelessness among psychiatric patients follows distinct clinical and survival trajectories. These findings support a shift toward differentiated, trajectory-informed psychiatric and social interventions targeting stage-specific risks

Nathalia Garcia holds a Master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology from the Faculdade de Psicologia da Universidade de Lisboa with a specialization in Dynamic Clinical Psychology. Her research on homelessness and social exclusion originated in her master’s thesis, focusing on psychiatric morbidity and long-term clinical and survival trajectories. She completed her master’s internship at the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisboa, contributing to a multidisciplinary team on eating disorders. Her interests include research and evidence-based mental health interventions for vulnerable populations. This work was developed in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Joana Henriques-Calado and Prof. Dr. João Gama-Marques.

Prof. Dr. João Gama-Marques (MD, Psychiatry; MSc Psychopharmacology; PhD Neurosciences) work has been focused in clinical and research with homeless people living and dying in Lisboa, Portugal, affected by primary (idiopathic) and secondary (organic) psychosis, from schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders spectra. He colaborates with various universitary institutes and coordinates the Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Engagement for Lisboa (HOPE 4 Lisboa) at Hospital Júlio de Matos, Lisboa, Portugal.

William Jubinville, Carolina Bottari and Laurence Roy, CA: From Powerlessness to Disengagement: Structural and Experiential Pathways of Healthcare Exclusion in Homelessness and Acquired Brain Injury

Acquired brain injury (ABI) is disproportionately prevalent among people experiencing homelessness, with studies suggesting that it affects more than half of this population. Yet the implications of ABI for people experiencing homelessness remain insufficiently addressed in healthcare systems and policy responses. Adopting an intersectional and structural approach, this presentation conceptualises healthcare exclusion for people experiencing homelessness as a multi-level process resulting from the interaction between systemic structures and personal experiences. ABI is presented as an overlooked aspect of health inequities in research and policy on homelessness.

This presentation combines findings from two qualitative studies conducted in Quebec, Canada: (1) semi-structured interviews with frontline professionals working in homelessness and healthcare services (N=14); and (2) interviews with people experiencing homelessness who have sustained an ABI (N=26). Data were analysed using a thematic approach inspired by Paillé & Mucchielli (2021), allowing for an in-depth exploration of both structural conditions and lived experiences.

The findings reveal a mutually reinforcing dynamic of exclusion. At the structural level, fragmented service systems, policy gaps, and limited integration of ABI within existing frameworks create conditions in which frontline workers face significant constraints in addressing complex and intersecting needs, often resulting in discontinuities of care and reliance on crisis-driven responses. At the experiential level, participants reported repeated encounters with stigma, unmet needs and institutional failure, which led to distrust and, in many cases, active disengagement from healthcare services. These processes interact to produce a cycle of exclusion that is both systemic and embodied.

This presentation promotes an intersectional understanding of healthcare exclusion by integrating structural and experiential perspectives. It advocates for comprehensive, rights-based responses to homelessness and highlights the need to recognise ABI as a critical dimension of inequality within homelessness systems.

William Jubinville is an occupational therapist and doctoral student in Rehabilitation Sciences at the Université de Montréal. His doctoral thesis focuses on the prevention and reduction of homelessness among people with acquired brain injury. Using innovative approaches, he focuses on life courses and turning points towards homelessness, in order to develop accessible preventive programs that meet the needs of this population. In addition to his research, William is actively involved in the training of future occupational therapists as a teaching assistant in the bachelor's and master's professional occupational therapy programs at the Université de Montréal.

Professor Carolina Bottari is an occupational therapist who specializes in cognitive disorders following a traumatic brain injury. She is a full professor at Université de Montréal and scientist at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal. Professor Bottari holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences from Université de Montréal and a CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at McGill University. She is currently leading several largely funded intersectoral grants seeking to put into place an ecosystem of care around women victims of intimate partner violence at risk of having sustained a traumatic brain injury.

Laurence Roy is an occupational therapist, a Professor in Occupational Therapy at Université de Montréal, and a researcher at the Institut national de psychiatrie légale Philippe-Pinel and at the CREMIS. Her research is situated at the intersection of health, housing, and homelessness, with a particular focus on participatory and community-engaged research. In recent years, her work has been centered on homelessness prevention strategies for individuals living with psychiatric or cognitive disabilities.

Chair: Boróka Fehér, HU

Berenice Peñafiel, FR: Intimate Lives in Precarity: Sexuality, Gender, and Homelessness

The sexual and intimate lives of people experiencing homelessness remain largely underexplored in French sociology (Bruneteaux & Blanchard, 2019) particularly with regard to women. Existing research is often fragmented, primarily based on quantitative or mixed-method approaches, and tends to focus on specific aspects of reproductive health or care trajectories rather than on lived experiences.

This paper presents findings from a research project on the sexuality and reproductive health of homeless women. Initially focused on menstrual experiences and menstrual precarity, the study evolved through fieldwork to address broader issues related to sexuality, intimate relationships, and reproductive health among women living on the street or in emergency accommodation.

The research draws on 20 qualitative interviews conducted in 2025 with women experiencing homelessness or housing instability, as defined by the ETHOS typology (FEANTSA). Participants were recruited in emergency shelters and accommodation facilities in two French cities. The analysis is based on thematic coding of interviews and observations, with particular attention to trajectories of homelessness and their effects on embodied experiences.

Grounded in the sociology of social experience (Dubet, 2014) and the sociology and anthropology of the body (Le Breton, 2006, 2007, 2018), the study conceptualises sexuality as an embodied and situated dimension shaped by the articulation of social norms, individual strategies, and processes of subjectivation. Gender is approached as a transversal dimension of this experience, through internalised norms of femininity, differentiated sexual socialisation, and biographical trajectories marked by violence.

The findings show that sexuality is not absent in contexts of extreme precarity: desire and affective life persist, although they are often constrained and rarely openly discussed. Women express numerous concerns about their bodies, reproductive health, and intimate relationships, despite limited access to healthcare. Living conditions—particularly the lack of privacy in institutional settings—strongly shape sexual practices. Many participants also report experiences of gender- based and sexual violence, which continue to influence their relationship to sexuality.

These results highlight the need to consider sexuality as a central dimension of embodied social experience in situations of homelessness.

Berenice Peñafiel is a sociologist specialising in the sociology of the body, health, and social exclusion. She completed her PhD at the University of Strasbourg, where her research focused on the everyday lives of homeless women. Her work adopts a qualitative and ethnographic approach to explore embodied experiences, gender, and precarity. She is currently conducting research on sexual and reproductive health among women experiencing homelessness. She has contributed to research projects on vulnerability and social inequalities. She is also the author of Femmes à la rue (Homeless Women), based on her doctoral research.

Harriet Earle-Brown, UK: The Contested Bodies of Homeless Women: Finding Agency in Scarcity 

This presentation shares findings from doctoral research into the everyday lives of women experiencing homelessness. It reframes women’s homelessness through the body (as site, scale, and strategy) by combining feminist and more‑than‑representational geographies to capture lived, felt, and relational experiences of homelessness. This body‑centred approach makes visible stigma, disgust, and exclusion, while also showing the small, situated ways women craft agency through bodily presentation, material objects, and the atmospheres of places. 

Methodologically this research used a feminist approach, conducting in‑depth semi‑structured interviews with three participant groups: service workers, women currently experiencing homelessness, and women with prior experiences of homelessness. To create gentler encounters with women experiencing homelessness, interviews were conducted via “manicure interviews” in a homeless day centre. 

Key findings: 

• Violence inscribed on the body leads to disempowerment and trauma. Women reported sexual violence, survival sex, self‑harm, coercive or abusive relationships, and persistent fear in hostels, temporary accommodation, and rough‑sleeping settings; these experiences left them with embodied and psychological trauma that fractured their sense of safety and self‑trust. 
• Stigma, reproductive injustice, and the “failed” feminine body produce low self‑esteem and identity erasure. Homeless women are judged for “failing” to perform idealised, heteronormative femininity because they lack the resources to stay clean, feel ‘beautiful’, or access clothing that matches their identity. Marked by stigma and disgust for being dirty, women are more easily mistreated (including through reproductive injustice), which lowers their self‑esteem, erodes identity, and leaves them feeling disempowered.
• Taking back control through tactics and home‑making. Despite having few assets beyond their bodies and limited belongings, women found ways to enact agency in their lives, such as retaining identity through dress; strategically performing their bodies for survival (passing as housed, performing masculinity, or sometimes “looking manky” to deter harm), and engaging in home‑making practices to restore control in their living environments.

Dr Harriet Earle-Brown is a geographer whose research examines homelessness through an embodied, gendered lens. She completed her PhD at the University of Exeter, with her thesis exploring how homeless women’s bodies become sites of stigma, violence and agency, linking everyday practices (grooming, dress, menstruation and home‑making) to identity, dignity and recovery. Beyond her doctorate, she has also studied marginalisation in day centres; and how people experiencing homelessness make sense of and manage their belongings. She enjoys using creative research methods, for example, running "manicure interviews” in a homeless day centre, to facilitate gentler, participant‑led conversations. Alongside her research, she works in local government delivering the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping strategy.

Sarah Sheridan, IE:  Service Experiences of Lone Parents Experiencing Homelessness in Ireland

This study explores the lived experiences of lone parents affected by homelessness and housing exclusion in Ireland, with a particular focus on their interactions with social policies and service systems. The research is theoretically grounded in the Capability Approach, which conceptualises individuals as ‘receivers’ of support, ‘doers’ with agency, and ‘judges’ capable of articulating preferences and influencing systems. This framework enables a multidimensional analysis of poverty, exclusion and empowerment.

This qualitative research project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme and Focus Ireland, involved two rounds of in-depth interviews with 19 lone parents who had experienced homelessness or severe housing exclusion, alongside interviews with 10 key stakeholders across policy and service domains. This approach facilitated an in-depth exploration of the interrelated social, economic and institutional factors shaping participants’ lives and pathways into homelessness.

Findings highlight persistent structural barriers faced by lone parents, including inadequate income supports, limited access to affordable childcare and disincentives within welfare systems that constrain participation in education and employment. These challenges contribute to cycles of poverty and heightened risk of housing instability. Service experiences were mixed: while some supports were described as empathetic, flexible, and transformative, others were characterised by frustrating administrative inefficiencies, judgemental interactions and fragmented delivery. The stigma of lone parenthood and homelessness were felt via negative service interactions which further undermined trust and engagement.

The study finds that current policy responses remain largely generalist and insufficiently attuned to the specific and intersectional needs of lone parents. It argues for a shift towards capability-enhancing policies that not only alleviate material deprivation but also strengthen agency, voice and opportunity. A coordinated, whole-of-government approach is required to address systemic gaps, particularly in preventing homelessness among socioeconomically marginalised lone parents and supporting sustainable exits from all forms of housing exclusion.

Dr Sarah Sheridan is an Independent Researcher specialising in homelessness and service evaluations. Her PhD focused on women’s experiences of homelessness in Ireland. She is an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. Previously she worked in research management positions in Focus Ireland and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. 

Chair: Ruth Owen, BE

Branagh O'Shaughnessy, UK and Paula Mayock, IE: Complex Recovery from Homelessness and Substance Use Disorder: How Housing with Supports Sustains Recovery Over Time

Background: Conceptualisations of recovery and homelessness do not adequately represent the process as complex, constantly negotiated and nonlinear. The concept of ‘complex recovery’ has the potential to address this limitation by illustrating how individuals experiencing homelessness and substance use disorder (SUD) navigate cumulative adversity in the pursuit of a recovered life. In this paper we present findings from a longitudinal qualitative study of the recovery dynamics of homeless service users with SUD in Ireland. Drawing from the complex recovery concept, we explore recovery as a dynamic, interactive process through which individuals actively construct and pursue their recovery goals. We also examine the role of living circumstances on service users’ recovery, including the impact of service contexts that are housing-led or that employ the ‘staircase’ model.

Method: Thirty-five individuals living in different homelessness service settings – including emergency accommodation, transitional housing and permanent housing with supports – were interviewed at two time points, approximately nine months apart. Complex recovery and recovery dynamics informed the reflexive thematic analysis of time one and time two transcripts. 

Findings: Themes identified included ‘(Dis)harmony between goals and living circumstances’; ‘Possibilities for Recovery’; and ‘Major personal transformation’. These themes capture patterns of progression, stagnation, and constraint across different life domains, including housing, relationships, substance use and health. The dynamics of recovery reflect how participants continually adapted their understanding of recovery in response to their changing circumstances, whether improving, deteriorating or remaining constant over time. 

Conclusion: Service users in housing with supports experienced greater opportunities for personal transformation, enhanced possibilities for recovery, and closer alignment between recovery goals and personal circumstances than those living in transitional and emergency accommodation. These findings underscore the importance of housing-led service models that assertively engage, flexibly support and stably house service users. Implications for policy and practice will be discussed.

Dr Branagh O' Shaughnessy is a Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Education, Language and Psychology, at York St John University, UK. Previously she was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. Her postdoctoral project, "The Complex Recovery Experiences of Homeless Service Users: A Qualitative Longitudinal Examination", was funded by Research Ireland. Branagh completed her PhD at the Dept. of Psychology, University of Limerick; her dissertation was on empowering and actualising homelessness service settings. Her research focuses on the psychological well-being of adults experiencing homelessness and mental health issues, with particular interest in empowering community-based programmes.

Dr Paula Mayock is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses primarily on the lives and experiences of marginalised youth and adult populations, covering areas such as homelessness, drug use and drug problems, which intersect strongly with topics including mental health, care experience, stigma and recovery. Paula is co-editor of Women’s Homelessness in Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), co-author of Lives in Crisis: Homeless Young People in Dublin (Liffey Press 2007) and Living in Limbo: Homeless Young People’s Paths to Housing (Focus Ireland 2017), and author of numerous articles, book chapters and research reports. She has held the role of Chairperson of the Steering Group for the Implementation of Housing for All, Youth Homelessness Strategy 2023-2025 at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage since September 2023.

Delyth James, Silvia Colonna, Ian Farr, Hywel Evans, Josh Dixon, Matthew Skermer, Sam Fallick, Gareth Davies, Columbus Ohaeri, Josie Smith, UK: The impact of Co-occurring Homelessness and Substance Misuse on Secondary Healthcare in Wales

Objectives

This study investigates how co-occurring homelessness and substance misuse shape patterns of secondary healthcare use in Wales, with the aim of increasing understanding of how overlapping social and health-related adversities compound inequality. The research formed part of the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) Substance Misuse Pilot Wales, which aimed to support early intervention and prevent escalation in substance misuse by using linked administrative data to understand service needs.

Methods

We used routinely collected, anonymised administrative data accessed through the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank. Four datasets were linked: primary care, hospital admissions, emergency department attendances, and specialist substance misuse treatment. We constructed a cohort of more than 32,000 individuals resident in Wales who engaged with specialist substance misuse treatment services between 2014 and 2019. Statistical analyses examined associations between homelessness and secondary healthcare use. We also explored interactions between homelessness, substance type, and demographic characteristics.

Findings

Among individuals receiving substance misuse treatment, homelessness was consistently associated with significantly higher demand for secondary healthcare services. Homelessness was linked to:

• increased expected numbers of emergency department attendances
• greater likelihood of emergency hospital admission
• higher expected numbers of overall hospital admissions
• longer expected duration of hospital stays
• elevated risk of emergency admissions for certain diagnoses

Conclusion

The findings demonstrate the substantial additional health burden experienced by people facing both homelessness and substance misuse, highlighting deep and persistent health inequalities. Improved understanding of healthcare utilisation among those with co-occurring needs can support more effective, targeted planning and service provision for groups experiencing multiple disadvantage.

Delyth James is a Data Scientist in the Welsh Government, specialising in the analysis of linked administrative data to inform policy and improve public services. She brings expertise in statistical modelling, data linkage, and the use of population level datasets to generate robust, actionable insights.

Chair: Freek Spinnewijn, BE

Gerard Spillane, IE: Breaking the Habitus: A Four Domain Framework for Embedding Peer Workers as Credible and Authoritative Contributors in Homelessness Services

This research examines the organisational conditions required to embed peer workers with lived experience as credible and authoritative contributors within homelessness services. The study situates peer integration within the historical interpretations of homelessness as moral failure, individual pathology, conditionality, and professionalisation, which continue to shape organisational habitus and influence how legitimacy is allocated. These inherited assumptions still underpin how services judge credibility, risk, and authority, and they form the backdrop against which peer workers must operate.

Using a four domain analytical framework; structural, epistemic, relational, and praxis. The research integrates Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Fricker’s epistemic injustice, Putnam’s social capital, and Freire’s dialogical praxis to analyse how authority is granted, withheld, or transformed in multidisciplinary teams. The study draws on comparative historical analysis, interpretive and reflexive methodology and 17 qualitative interviews with peer workers, supervisors, and senior managers/sponsors across multiple organisations.

Findings show that peer integration is shaped far less by individual capability and far more by routine organisational practices. Structural mechanisms such as system permissions, meeting design, caseload allocation, and contract architecture frequently restrict peer authority. Epistemic injustice appears through credibility deficits, explanation fatigue, and gaps in shared interpretive resources, limiting the extent to which experiential knowledge influences decisions. Relationally, peer workers generate rapid trust with service users, however bridging into professional teams only occurs when organisations deliberately scaffold it through co working, co location, equal training access, and participation in decision making forums.

The study also identifies a distinctive peer praxis, dialogical entry, calibrated disclosure, reflective micro cycles, and grounded hope, that consistently improves engagement, reduces escalation, and strengthens tenancy sustainment. These practices are already visible in high functioning teams and can be formalised as teachable routines. When structural, epistemic, relational, and praxis supports align, experiential capital converts into recognised authority; when misaligned, peer workers absorb the burden through emotional labour, identity work, and continuous credibility repair.

The research offers a practice ready framework and a suite of implementable organisational tools that enable services to move from goodwill based peer involvement to authoritative structured role.

Gerard Spillane is Head of Practice Development at Focus Ireland and a doctoral candidate in Social Science. He has over 30 years’ senior leadership experience across homelessness, addiction, and community services, spanning frontline practice, regional management, and national strategic roles. His work focuses on workforce development, organisational learning, and the integration of peer working, trauma informed practice, and psychologically informed environments. His doctoral research develops a four domain framework, structural, epistemic, relational, and praxis based, that explains how experiential capital becomes recognised authority within multidisciplinary teams. He is committed to advancing evidence informed, lived experience led practice across statutory and voluntary services

Michiel Massart, Bart Put, Wim Wiertz, Amber Van Wijngaarden, Bart Verhoeven, Alain Bielen, Inge Pasteels, BE: Co-creating Solutions to Homelessness: A Supra-Local Collaboration Model with Housing Professionals and People with Lived Experience in Limburg, Belgium

According to the Flemish Housing Code, housing security is a fundamental component of the right to decent housing. Yet today, housing security is under pressure for many people in Flanders (Belgium), due to a variety of intertwined factors: a stagnant private rental market with high rents, discriminatory practices that disadvantage vulnerable tenants, limited supply of social housing, fragmented and largely unknown or inaccessible support services that are neither well-co-ordinated nor tailored to the actual needs of vulnerable tenants and people experiencing homelessness, etc. As a result, the homeless population in Flanders is currently growing and becoming more diverse, and policymakers at various levels, as well as care, welfare and legal professionals working on housing and homelessness, face complex and intensified challenges.

In response, we conducted a practice-oriented research project aimed at developing an integrated, supra-local collaboration model designed to facilitate the development and implementation of solutions to homelessness in the

province of Limburg, Flanders. To develop this model, we gathered insights from both housing professionals (including care, welfare, and legal professionals, as well as policymakers) and people experiencing homelessness. We received input from 246 housing professionals via an online survey and, based on these responses, engaged in further discussions with 29 housing professionals across three focus group discussions and 8 individual in-depth interviews. In addition, the perspectives of people with lived experience of homelessness were integrated throughout the project through 12 in-depth interviews.

The project resulted in a cross-sectoral action plan to support coordinated, evidence-based solutions to homelessness in Limburg. The findings highlight concrete opportunities for joint implementation by governments, social welfare organizations and legal actors, in partnership with the target group.

Michiel Massart is a sociologist and a researcher at PXL People & Society Research (Hasselt, Belgium). His current research interests include the effectiveness of budget and debt assistance programs in social work, eviction prevention mechanisms, and collaborative networks of homelessness prevention.

Bart Put is a sociologist and a researcher at PXL People & Society Research (Hasselt, Belgium). His research focuses on the dynamics of family life in relation to housing market challenges, the role of private landlords in housing accessibility and housing security challenges for vulnerable groups, and eviction prevention in social work practice. 

Wim Wiertz is a sociologist, social worker, and researcher at PXL People & Society Research (Hasselt, Belgium). His current work examines inter-organizational collaboration in responding to complex challenges within the social sector, with particular emphasis on ensuring that the perspectives and voices of the target groups remain central throughout the research process.

Amber Van Wijngaarden is a psychologist and a researcher at PXL People & Society Research (Hasselt, Belgium). Her research specializes on the challenges faced by homeless women, and on collaborative networks in the context of homelessness prevention.   

Bart Verhoeven is operational director of CAW Limburg (Belgium).

Alain Bielen is general director of CAW Limburg (Belgium). 

Inge Pasteels is a sociologist and a statistician. She is Head of Research at the PXL People & Society Research Center of Expertise (Hasselt, Belgium), where she coordinates research projects on housing, families, and work. Her own research specialty is in the field of family sociology and social work.      

Michael Kolocek and Lea Fischer, DE: Individuals with Lived Experience of Homelessness as Peer Researchers: A Participatory Approach to Research with Marginalised Groups

In our paper, we take a self-critical approach to examining the experiences of involving peer researchers in a study on homelessness and informal work. 

Theoretical framing: Peer research is understood as the involvement of individuals with personal experience of the subject under investigation in various phases of the research process. Several advantages of this approach have been highlighted in literature. For instance, academic researchers benefit from enhanced access to populations that are usually hard to reach, as well as from more comprehensive findings. Peer researchers may benefit from modest income opportunities and empowerment. However, there are also risks for both parties.

Methods: The paper draws on the experience with six peer researchers who participated in a research project focusing on marginalised individuals and the future of inner cities in Munich, Dortmund, and Bochum. All six peer researchers had personal experience of homelessness and/or of working as street paper vendors. They were involved at different stages of the project, providing support through the development and implementation of various research methods. In the first year, they participated in (the) developing, implementing, and interpreting a survey among street paper vendors. In the second year, two peer researchers assisted the research team by conducting interviews and observations of individuals involved in activities such as begging or collecting deposit bottles.

Findings: Our findings are presented in three parts: First, we present the key results of our empirical research, which focus on the social recognition of beggars, street paper vendors, and other informal workers. Second, we demonstrate how the peer researchers contributed to generating the data and interpreting the results. Finally, we critically discuss the risks and limitations of integrating peer researchers into research on poverty and marginalisation.

Michael Kolocek is a Senior Research Manager in the Urban Social Space research group at the ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development, in Dortmund. He holds a degree in spatial planning and completed his PhD on the global discourse on the human right to housing. His research focuses on housing, land policy, social cohesion, and human dignity. He is currently leading several research projects on housing policy and discourse, including the Volkswagen Foundation-funded project “Marginalized Groups and the City of Solidarity (MaBIs)”, on which the present abstract is based. 

Lea Fischer is a postdoc researcher in the Urban Social Space research group at the ILS – Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development, in Dortmund. Having studied spatial planning (B. Sc.) as well as philosophy and political science (M. A.), she conducted transdisciplinary research on citizen participation in spatial planning in her PhD project. She is part of the MaBIs project team. As such, she is particularly interested in participatory research approaches including marginalized groups. 

Chair: Volker Busch-Geertsema, DE

Michelle Cornes, UK, Jess Harris, UK, Alí Ruiz Coronel, MX/UK, Felipe Estay, Chile: Housing First In London And Santiago De Chile: A Realist Comparative Analysis

This research presents a comparative analysis of the implementation of Housing First in London and Santiago de Chile, examining how the programme operates across contrasting socio- institutional contexts in the Global North and Global South. The paper draws on emerging findings from two studies: A National Institute of Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) study of the health impacts of permanent supportive housing in England and a study of Housing First Implementation Fidelity and Housing Retention Outcomes in Santiago de Chile.

Drawing on a realist evaluation framework, the study is theoretically grounded in the premise that social interventions do not produce uniform outcomes; rather, their effectiveness depends on context-specific configurations of mechanisms and conditions. The analysis engages with debates on policy transfer, fidelity, and adaptation, questioning whether strict adherence to the original Housing First model is always feasible or desirable.

Methodologically, the study adopts a comparative realist design, building Context– Mechanism–Outcome (CMO) configurations for each city. Data sources include legal frameworks, policy documents, institutional reports, and secondary literature, complemented by qualitative data collected through participatory observation, interviews, and shadowing of programme participants in both locations. This mixed qualitative approach enables an in-depth understanding of how Housing First is implemented and experienced on the ground.

Preliminary findings reveal that while core principles of Housing First are present in both contexts, their implementation differs significantly. In London, a more regulated housing system supports programme delivery but is constrained by limited housing supply and bureaucratic complexities. In Santiago, implementation is shaped by housing informality and resource constraints, leading to greater adaptation of the model. Across both cases, outcomes such as housing retention and user engagement are influenced by the interaction between structural conditions and service delivery mechanisms.

The preliminary conclusions of the study are that Housing First is not a universally transferable model; its success depends on context-sensitive adaptations. These findings contribute to broader discussions on policy mobility, highlighting the need to balance fidelity with flexibility when implementing social interventions across diverse settings.

Michelle Cornes is Professor of Health and Social Policy Inequalities in the School for Health and Society at the University of Salford. She also holds a Visiting Professorship at the NIHR Health and Social Care Policy Research Unit at King’s College London and is a Senior Fellow at the NIHR School for Social Care Research. Michelle has worked on a range of homelessness and inclusion health research projects for over ten years.

Jess Harris is a Senior Research Fellow at the NIHR Health & Social Care Workforce Research Unit (HSCWRU) at King’s College London, UK, and co-leads the HSCWRU Homelessness Research Programme. Her research focuses on the care and support needs of people experiencing homelessness and multiple disadvantage.

Alí Ruiz Coronel is a Researcher at the Institute for Social Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where she leads the Permanent Seminar on Action Research on Homelessness in Latin America. She is currently on a sabbatical year at King’s College London.

Felipe Estay is a Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He is Director of Moviliza, a civil society organisation supporting people experiencing homelessness in Chile, and co-founder of the Centro de Investigación en Incidencia para Erradicar la Situación de Calle en América Latina (CISCAL). His research focuses on residential trajectories, Housing First implementation, and the social and economic determinants of homelessness in Latin America

Cecilia Heule, Marcus Knutagård, Arne Kristiansen, SE: Mending Gaps in Housing First Implementation: Peer Support and Collaborative Knowledge Production in Sweden

Across Europe, Housing First has been established as an evidence-based response to homelessness, yet significant gaps often remain between policy intentions, professional practice, and the lived experiences of tenants. This paper examines gap-mending processes within Swedish Housing First projects, focusing on how collaborative and participatory practices contribute to bridging these divides and strengthening model fidelity while allowing for contextual adaptation.

Drawing on ongoing qualitative research, the study explores how practitioners, peer supporters, and tenants engage in relational and reflective practices that facilitate shared understanding, trust, and knowledge exchange. Particular attention is paid to the role of peer support – an integral but underdeveloped component of Housing First in Sweden – and how the involvement of service users as peer supporters has created new forms of participation and co-production within local welfare systems.

The findings demonstrate that gap-mending practices help practitioners navigate tensions between policy frameworks, professional roles, and tenant needs, thereby supporting more integrated and person-centred responses to homelessness. These processes not only enhance adherence to Housing First principles but also foster organisational learning, innovation, and ethical reflexivity in service delivery.

By situating Swedish experiences within a broader European debate on homelessness and housing exclusion, the paper contributes to discussions on how evidence-based models can be implemented in ways that are both faithful and adaptable. The study highlights the importance of peer support and collaborative knowledge production for developing resilient and inclusive Housing First practices across diverse welfare contexts.

Cecilia Heule is a PhD and senior lecturer at the School of Social Work, Lund university. Her research focuses on social inclusion, gap-mending strategies, experiential knowledge, peer support & community development. Together with colleagues and service users from 17 countries, she has initiated and coordinates the network PowerUs. 

Marcus Knutagård is Professor and Head of Department at Malmö University’s Department of Urban Studies. His research centres on housing policy, homelessness, and the organisation of social work. He leads and participates in research projects on homelessness, collaborative competence, and innovative methods, and is affiliated with CIRCLE and the Centre for Public Sector Innovation.

Arne Kristiansen is Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, Lund University. His research focuses on the ways economic and social vulnerability are expressed in substance abuse and homelessness, as well as on social rights, with particular emphasis on user participation and social mobilization.

Chair: Nasibeh Hedayati, FI, and online facilitators Miroslava Hlincikova and Mattia Mansueto.

This is a special session for early career researchers and researchers new to the field of homelessness to network and to develop a work plan for the forthcoming year, including developing the framework for joint funding. Senior researchers of the European Observatory on Homelessness will support the session: Nóra Teller, HU, Koen Hermans, BE and Nicholas Pleace, UK. The EOH Early Career Researchers' Club session brings together PhD candidates, early-career researchers and those new to homelessness research. Participants will have the opportunity to exchange experiences and research interests, build connections with peers, discuss future collaboration within the Club, and contribute to shaping its activities for the coming year. The session is open to both in-person and online participants.

Chair: Koen Hermans, BE

Teresa Consoli, Marta Gaboardi, Maddalena Floriana Grassi, IT: European Homelessness Count in Italy in 2025. Mapping, Participation, and Network Strengthening in three Italian cities

This contribution is situated within the European Homelessness Count (EHC), a coordinated initiative financed by the EU and headed by KU Leuven aimed at improving the measurement and understanding of homelessness across European cities through the adoption of harmonised methodologies. The EHC is grounded in the ETHOS Light classification and combines street-based enumeration with service-based data collection. This contribution presents a comparative reflection on the processes activated by the implementation of the EHC, on data collection and on their broader impacts at the local level in the three Italian cities - Catania, Padova, and Brescia- involved in the EHC in 2025. 

In particular, the analysis highlights three key dimensions: 

• first, the implementation of the Count contributed to reshaping the analytical perspective on the city and to producing a shared territorial knowledge among stakeholders, enabling a more precise identification of areas characterised by the presence of homelessness and of the spatial distribution of services;
• second, the EHC promoted a significant mobilisation of civil society, involving volunteers, third-sector organisations, and citizens in the data collection process. This participatory dimension generated opportunities for exchange, awareness-raising, and civic engagement around the issue of homelessness;
• third, the EHC, headed in Italy by the University of Catania in collaboration with FioPSD, contributed to fostering coordination, encouraging dialogue, and laying the groundwork for more structured and integrated service provision systems for homelessness.

Overall, the findings suggest that the added value of the EHC lies not only in the production of more reliable and comparable data, but also in its capacity to activate processes of institutional learning, social participation, and network-building. In this sense, the EHC can be described as both a methodological tool and a transformative practice, capable of supporting the development of more integrated and evidence-based policies to address homelessness at the local level.

Teresa Consoli is full Professor in Sociology of Law at the University of Catania, Dept. of Education. Her studies focus on welfare systems, migration, poverty and homelessness. She has monitored the first implementation of housing first and recently coordinated the EHC in Italy. She edited with A. Meo, Homelessness in Italia, FrancoAngeli 2020, published “Homelessness in Italy. Old private stories and New Public opportunities”, in Routledge Handbook of Global Perspectives on Homelessness, Law and Policy by Bevan C. (ed.) 2024 and with C. Cortese “Homelessness in Italy” chap. 32 in Routledge Handbook on Homelessness (eds.) J. Bretherton and N. Pleace, 2023.

Marta Gaboardi holds a PhD in Psychological Sciences and is a researcher in the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Padua. Her studies focus on homelessness, with a particular interest in Housing First approaches, social inclusion, and the evaluation of social services. She studies community-based interventions aimed at improving the well-being of marginalised populations, emphasising participatory methods within community and social psychology.

Maddalena Floriana Grassi is a social worker with a PhD in Sociology and Social Policies. She is a member of the Analysis, Studies and Europe Unit team of fio.PSD. She carries out activities in study, research and teaching on social work, planning and management of social services, organizational and professional well-being, research methodologies aimed at fostering the participation of vulnerable populations, and policies to combat poverty, severe adult marginalization and housing exclusion.

Dorieke Wewerinke and Sandra Schel, NL: Insights into Gender Differences in Homelessness Using the full ETHOS-Light Classification: Findings from the Netherlands

Homelessness statistics often focus on the most visible living situations, which limits insight into the full range of homelessness experiences and disproportionately affects the visibility of women. By applying the full ETHOS-Light classification, this study measures homelessness across all ETHOS-Light living situations in the Netherlands.

An extended, multi-sector service-based point-in-time methodology was applied across 17 regions in the Netherlands between 2023 and 2025, covering 124 municipalities. Professionals from a wide range of organisations, including social services, healthcare, youth services, housing organisations, and community-based initiatives, reported on all individuals known to them who were experiencing homelessness across the full ETHOS-Light classification. Descriptive analyses and gender-stratified chi-square tests were used to examine differences in living situations and demographic, social, and health characteristics.

In total, 35,205 people experiencing homelessness were identified, including both adults and children. The results show that the majority of homelessness occurs in ETHOS-Light living situations beyond rough sleeping and emergency accommodation. Clear gender differences were observed across living situations and profile characteristics. Men were overrepresented in the most visible and institutional forms of homelessness, while women were more frequently found in living situations such as temporarily staying with others and living in non-conventional dwellings, and were more often living with children.

The presentation demonstrates how applying the full ETHOS-Light classification changes the empirical picture of homelessness and reveals distinct gendered patterns across living situations and profile characteristics. It discusses the implications of these findings for homelessness monitoring, prevention, and support, highlighting the importance of using comprehensive classification frameworks to inform gender-sensitive policy and practice.

Dorieke Wewerinke and Sandra Schel are senior researchers at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU) and led the development and regional implementation of the ETHOS-Light counting methodology in the Netherlands. Dorieke Wewerinke is also a senior lecturer and leads the national professional training program on Housing First in the Netherlands; she has extensive experience in applied homelessness research and is currently completing a PhD on Housing First. 

Sandra Schel is a psychologist, holds a PhD in homelessness research, and is a member of the HU Research Ethics Committee. She has demonstrated expertise in applied and academic research on homelessness and social exclusion.

Chair: Lars Benjaminsen, DK

Elena Tubertini, Camilla Lasagna, Silvia Magino, Luca Rollè, IT: Expert Voices: Testimonies from Practitioners and LGBTQIA+ People with Lived Experience of homelessness in Italy, Spain, Belgium and Finland

LGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness (PEH) are overrepresented in the EU, and face additional discrimination when accessing services. Research shows that exclusive LGBTQ+ shelters can enhance safety and mental health. To identify effective LGBTQ+ shelters’ features and fill in the gap of EU-based data on this phenomenon, we focus on the lived experiences of queer PEH, exploring the support they received from LGBTQ+ housing services in Europe.

The presentation draws on two mixed-methods studies aimed to identify queer shelter features promoting users’ well-being through interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. The first was conducted in 2024 within the PRIDE network of queer Italian shelters, led by Quore (Torino, Italy) under an ILGA-EU call. The second was conducted within the transnational LGBTQIA+ Housing and Inclusion Network, QueerNet (2026, Connecting Spheres - Oxfam). The first study involved 20 LGBTQIA+ residents and 20 shelter staff from five Italian shelters. The second study involved 28 LGBTQA+ users and experts by experience and 30 shelters’ staff from four LGBTQ+ housing programmes in Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Finland. Interviews were analysed using a reflexive thematic approach within an intersectional framework.

Results indicate how queer shelters not only provide safe spaces, but also improve capabilities, mastery and well-being. Residents’ and staff views on the shelters’ priorities varied depending on the users’ identities and socio-political context. Participants cited the need to work on choice, community belonging, and inclusion in decision-making, underlining the need to balance between residents’ protection and allowing free identity exploration. Staff competence appears crucial in fostering positive, authentic, empowering staff-resident relationships.

Results contributed to policy briefs reflecting the multifaceted needs of LGBTQIA+ PEH in Europe. Alliance-grounded psychosocial work is crucial with this group, within an increasingly hostile climate. Researchers, activists, and practitioners should commit to sharing experiences to create evidence, inform advocacy, support services, and strengthen legislative frameworks.

Elena Tubertini is a community psychologist. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, with a focus on promoting the well-being of LGBTQIA+ individuals who are homeless as a result of discrimination. She works with public and third-sector organizations on social research, community empowerment initiatives and support for well-being and positive exploration of sexual identity. 

Camilla Lasagna is a social psychologist and fellow researcher in the field of gender studies. Her research interests concern gender and social inequalities, as well as transfeminist perspectives adopting an intersectional approach.

Alex Abramovich, CA: Advancing Inclusive Measurement: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data in Point-in-Time Counts of Homelessness

Point-in-time (PiT) counts, also known as homeless counts or street counts, are widely used to estimate the prevalence of homelessness and collect demographic and service needs data. They are often considered the gold-standard method for enumerating homelessness within defined geographic areas. However, the routine exclusion of comprehensive sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) measures has rendered LGBTIQ+ populations largely invisible in homelessness research. Grounded in intersectionality and minority stress frameworks, this presentation focuses on the development, implementation, and methodological contributions of inclusive SOGI data collection tools integrated into Canada’s nationally coordinated PiT count across more than 70 communities. Using data from Toronto’s 2024 Street Needs Assessment, we analyze the prevalence, characteristics, and experiences of LGBTIQ+ youth aged 16–24 experiencing homelessness. Findings reveal disproportionately high rates of family conflict and rejection, involvement with child protection services, chronic homelessness, refugee claimant status, and co-occurring mental health and substance use challenges. Intersectional analyses demonstrate how experiences of homelessness are shaped by the combined effects of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic marginalization. Comparisons of 2021 and 2024 Street Needs Assessment data highlight shifting patterns in youth homelessness within the context of broader structural and policy changes. This presentation demonstrates how inclusive SOGI measurement can improve data quality, equity, and policy relevance in homelessness research. The presentation concludes with best practice recommendations for administering SOGI questions in large-scale homelessness surveys, alongside implications for service planning and prevention strategies.

Dr. Alex Abramovich is a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, and holds a Canada Research Chair in 2SLGBTQ+ Youth Homelessness and Mental Health. Dr. Abramovich’s research addresses the health and social inequities experienced by 2SLGBTQ+ individuals and has informed innovative housing practices, including Canada’s first transitional housing program for 2SLGBTQ+ youth. He has worked with all levels of government to develop policies addressing the needs of 2SLGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness and is committed to research that ethically engages marginalized populations. 

Edith England, Neil Turnbull, UK: The 2023-24 LGBTQ+ Housing and Homelessness Survey

(1) Theoretical framing

LGBTQ+ people are widely believed to be at elevated risk of homelessness, reflecting high rates of social exclusion and marginalisation (especially among certain sub-groups), yet robust evidence on prevalence and patterning of homelessness within the LGBTQ+ population remains limited, and largely restricted to youth-focused, geographically highly specific, studies (England 2020; 2021). This is especially concerning given evidence of high service avoidance/ disengagement among LGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness. We understand homelessness as structurally produced, social marginalisation, arising through unequal access to safe, secure housing and shaped by multiple intersecting factors including socio-economic and legal precarity, discrimination, service exclusion and compromised rights (Bramley & Fitzpatrick, 2018; Fitzpatrick, 2009). 

(2) Methods used

Participants (n=1119) were recruited to an online survey through LGBTQ+ organisations, community groups, social media, and venues throughout the UK.; we deliberately avoided recruiting through homelessness services. Homelessness questions were structured to identify those potentially eligible for statutory assistance (broadly reflecting FEANSTA categories 1-13). We also explored demographic, socio-economic and broader housing factors. Analysis considered distribution of homelessness across demographic groups (chi squared, t tests), predictive factors for homelessness (logistic regression) and identification of distinct patterns of homelessness experience and housing risk (two-step cluster analysis).   

(3) Findings of the research

Homelessness among LGBTQ+ adults in the UK was found to be both prevalent and complex, with over a fifth reporting homelessness in the last year. Youth was identified as a major risk factor for acute housing crisis and elevated housing precarity, as were trans and/or non-binary identity, disability and childhood homelessness. In contrast, older, non-disabled, cisgendered gay men tended to have the greatest lifetime and current housing security. These findings provide an evidence base for sensitive and effective service planning, early identification of homelessness risk, targeted prevention and design of appropriate interventions. 

Edith England is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Cardiff Metropolitan University (Cardiff, UK). Edith’s work focuses on housing marginalisation, especially among excluded groups (primarily LGBTQ+ people, women and minoritised genders, and neurodivergent people). Edith is currently working on a mixed methods British Academy/Leverhulme funded project exploring housing insecurity (and potential solutions) among autistic/ADHD/AuDHD people.

Neil Turnbull is a lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University (Cardiff, UK). Neil seeks to further social justice for disadvantaged communities of place and/or identity through collaborative scientific research. This work explores the spatial and organisational dimensions of social infrastructures and state responsibilities for care services.     

 Chair: Masa Filipovic-Hrast, SI

Evelien Demaerschalk, Nana Mertens & Koen Hermans, BE: Mental Health and Addiction in an Extended Service Based Homelessness Count (Belgium)

We would like to present our findings on mental health and substance use issues among people experiencing homelessness in Belgium, based on local and regional extended services based homelessness counts conducted between 2020 and 2025. The analysis combines quantitative data from the counts and qualitative insights from expert consultations and ongoing fieldwork.

The quantitative results show a high prevalence of complex needs within the homeless population. Overall, 30.1% of respondents were identified as having (suspected) mental health problems and 28.8% as having (suspected) substance use issues. Patterns vary by ETHOS Light living situation. In emergency night shelters, 14.2% of individuals present only mental health problems, 23.9% only substance use issues, and 18.5% both, meaning that 56.6% experience at least one of these challenges. This concentration places considerable pressure on emergency shelter services. In regular homeless accommodation, 37.3% of residents are affected. Among those staying in non-conventional spaces or temporarily with family and friends, more than 40% face one or both issues.

Qualitative findings highlight structural challenges, including limited and unequal access to care, the need for stronger intersectoral collaboration, and the strain on shelter systems. Experts also point to exclusion criteria within services that leave some of the most vulnerable individuals without support, often resulting in prolonged street homelessness.

In addition, ongoing research in 2026 follows innovative projects targeting this population, including initiatives focused on eviction prevention and the integration of substance use care. Preliminary insights from these projects will complement the presentation, offering emerging practices and policy recommendations.

Together, these findings underline the urgency of integrated, accessible, and inclusive responses to mental health and substance use issues within homelessness policy and practice in Belgium.

Evelien Demaerschalk and Nana Mertens are researchers at LUCAS, Center for Care Research and Consultancy. Their work focuses on the care and support for vulnerable and underserved populations in society. They were involved in the development and organization of local and regional homelessness counts in Belgium.

Koen Hermans, Belgium is Associate Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at the Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven. He is also project leader at LUCAS, Centre for Care Research and Consultancy. His research focuses on the care and support for vulnerable and underserved populations in society, such as homeless persons, persons with disability and youngsters with complex needs. He was the coordinator of the European Homelessness Count project. In Belgium, he is responsible for the development and organization of local and regional homelessness counts.

Amélia Simões Figueiredo, João Neves-Amado, João Gama-Marques, Sandra Paço, Lurdes Medeiros-Garcia, Lúcia Bacalhau, and Helga Martins, PT: Community Nursing Consultation in a Public Bathhouse: Mental Health Care for People Experiencing Homelessness

(1) Public bathhouses have existed in Lisbon since the 1930s, providing hygiene services to vulnerable populations, including individuals experiencing homelessness. Previous studies have characterized users as predominantly male, single, economically active, and of low socioeconomic status, often lacking access to healthcare and presenting with multiple morbidities, particularly mental health, cardiovascular, and infectious conditions. These findings highlight the need for targeted community-based interventions.

The “Public Bathhouse Nursing” project, integrated within the Nursing Research Platform of the Interdisciplinary Health Research Centre at the Portuguese Catholic University, provides voluntary, anonymous, walk-in nursing consultations. Its aim is to empower users by promoting mental health, self-management, education, active listening, emotional support, and referral to social and healthcare resources when necessary.

(2) This study adopted a quantitative, cross-sectional, and retrospective design, including all users who attended the consultations. The objective was to identify nursing diagnoses and interventions related to mental health. Data were collected using a digital instrument and stored in a Microsoft Access database, in compliance with Portuguese data protection legislation (No. 9673/2014). Sociodemographic and clinical variables, types of interventions, and nursing diagnoses were recorded. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed.

(3) Participants were predominantly male, single, in the active phase of life, with no source of income, and with associated mental illness. More than 600 consultations were conducted, some of which were anonymized, resulting in numerous nursing diagnoses and interventions in the field of mental health. The most frequent interventions included active listening, emotional support, promotion of self-esteem, and identification of attitudes toward care. Other interventions focused on counseling, fostering hope, and supporting decision-making.

These results show that nursing consultations addressing mental health provide a holistic, person-centered approach that meets psychosocial needs, promotes empowerment, and improves healthcare access among vulnerable populations.

Amélia Simões Figueiredo has a Nursing degree and worked as a Nurse at Hospital de São José (1983-1990). She specialized in Public Health Nursing (1995). She holds a Master’s degree (2004) and a PhD (2013) in Educational Sciences, from the University of Lisbon, in the area of Adult Training. She was a Faculty at the Escola Superior de Enfermagem de São Vicente de Paulo (1990-2006) and, by transfer, she joined the School of Nursing (Lisbon) of the Institute of Health Sciences of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa in 2006, hereinafter referred to as the Faculty of Sciences of Health and Nursing (FCSE) (2023). She is a member of the Dean’s Board and the Scientific Board of FCSE. She was Coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Nursing and also Coordinator of the specialization area of Community Nursing and Public Health (2006-2020). She is a founding member of Sociedade Portuguesa de História da Enfermagem (SPHE) and an integrated researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Research (CIIS). She is currently an Associate Professor and since October 2020 Director of the School of Nursing (Lisbon) at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, where she chairs the Pedagogical Board and the Scientific Technical Board.

Prof. Dr. João Gama-Marques (MD, Psychiatry; MSc Psychopharmacology; PhD Neurosciences) work has been focused in clinical and research with homeless people living and dying in Lisboa, Portugal, affected by primary (idiopathic) and secondary (organic) psychosis, from schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders spectra. He colaborates with various universitary institutes and coordinates the Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Engagement for Lisboa (HOPE 4 Lisboa) at Hospital Júlio de Matos, Lisboa, Portugal.

João Neves-Amado is an Assistant Professor at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and an integrated researcher at the Interdisciplinary Health Research Center, with a specialized background in community health nursing and public health. His professional journey encompasses clinical practice, academic teaching, and leadership roles within the Faculty of Health Sciences and Nursing, where he has coordinated educational programs and contributed to quality assurance initiatives focused on nursing education. Neves-Amado's research interests center on community health promotion, nursing education, public health informatics, and wound care innovation.

Lurdes Medeiros-Garcia is a Professor at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and a collaborating researcher at the Interdisciplinary Health Research Center; Master’s degree in Educational Sciences – specializing in Intercultural Education – from the University of Lisbon; PhD Student in Nursing, Specialist in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing. Her research interests center on nursing education and nursing history.

Sandra Paço is a Lecturer and Researcher in the “Ethics4Care” project at CIIS. She holds a PhD in Nursing (2022), by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Institute of Health Sciences. She has a specialization in Bioethics related to Healthcare (2007/2008), acquired from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP), and has a postgraduate Diploma in Healthcare-Associated Infection (2006/2007), from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. She is also a registered nurse with 30 years of clinical experience in Oncology, Medical-Surgical Wards, Operating Theatre, and Pain Management Unit. She was a member of the Ethics Committee of HCIS and the Ethics Committee of Hospital CUF Tejo from 2017 to 2022 and participated in the “Health for All – Specialties” project with the NGO Instituto Marquês de Valle Flôr in São Tomé and Príncipe.

Lúcia Bacalhau has a PhD in Nursing and Invited Assistant Professor at FCSE UCP, with expertise in oncology and complex care, integrating 16+ years of clinical practice with research activity within an R&D unit (CIIS). Contributes to healthy ageing through person-centred, evidence-based approaches addressing symptom burden, functional decline, and continuity of care in ageing populations with multimorbidity.

Chair: Nicholas Pleace

Amelia Trombetta, PT: Six-Month Outcomes of a Lisbon Pilot Program Integrating Peer-Led Harm Reduction with Primary Health Care to Reach People Experiencing Homelessness

Theoretical Framing

According to the Portuguese National Strategy for the Integration of Homeless People 2024 survey, there were 14,476 people experiencing homelessness (PEH) across Portugal, with 3,122 in Lisbon. PEH face significant barriers to healthcare access, despite universal coverage. Structural, administrative, and social exclusion, including lack of documentation, stigma, and complex bureaucracy, reduce access to primary care, prevention and treatment, resulting in premature mortality from preventable and treatable conditions. Integrated, community-led approaches based on the principles of trauma-informed care have proven effective in addressing these challenges.

Methods 

A pilot program in Lisbon was established through a collaboration between a peer-led harm reduction center (GAT In Mouraria) and a primary health care center (Unidade Local de Saúde de Lisboa Ocidental), aiming to improve healthcare access and retention for PEH. The model included both in-person and remote consultations, ensuring flexibility and continuity of care, reduced waiting times, logistical support with transport, accompaniment by a trusted staff member from the NGO, referrals for specialty consultations as needed, prescription and free medication, supervised administration. Data from the following users included were gathered and analyzed in Microsoft Excell.

Findings 

Thirty-eight users (31 cisgender men, 7 cisgender women), aged 22–63, from 17 countries, were enrolled; at least 34 were experiencing homelessness, and all migrants lacked valid residence in Portugal. At least 29 had histories of problematic cocaine, heroin, and/or alcohol use. 

Thirty-three users accepted, resulting in an adherence rate of 87%. 

As part of the intervention, all participants underwent diagnostic tests according to clinical conditions and 20 cardiovascular, 31 metabolic, and 7 cancer screenings were performed, based on age-specific recommendations.

These results align with international findings that tailored, low-threshold interventions, especially those led by peers and integrated with public health systems, can effectively engage PEH and increase adherence. This model suggests that scaling such interventions could significantly enhance health equity and wellbeing among homeless populations.

Amelia Trombetta is a medical doctor and PhD, specialized in Allergy and Clinical Immunology, currently working as Clinician and Co-Health Director at GAT – Grupo de Ativistas em Tratamentos, and GAT in Mouraria, in Lisbon. Her main focus at GAT is providing clinical care and harm reduction interventions for marginalised populations, especially in the context of HIV and other infectious diseases. At the moment, her research interests are centered on harm reduction and health access within community settings. 

Co-authors: C. Quelhas, C. Ferreira, I. Ramalho, C. Mascarenhas, G. Milandri, P. Gomes, R. Santos, S. Marchetti, A. Curado

Kelly Howells, Mhorag Goff, Dan Bleksley, Stephan Morrison, Thomas Blakeman, Emma Adams, Sheena Ramsay and Caroline Sanders, UK: Models of Integrated Care for People Experiencing Homelessness: A Multi-Site, Qualitative Study in England

Theoretical framing

People experiencing homelessness face severe multimorbidity and fragmented access to care with acknowledged need for greater service integration. This study aimed to understand how access is negotiated and how integration functions in practice drawing on two complementary theoretical frameworks: Candidacy (Dixon Woods et al) and Systems Thinking for Everyday Work (STEW). Together these frameworks provided a lens to understand individual, organisational and system factors impacting on integration of health, housing, social care and voluntary-sector services.  

Methods

We conducted a multi-site qualitative case study across four city regions in England, including observations in service settings and semi-structured interviews with people experiencing homelessness, service providers and key stakeholders. Analysis focused on models of service provision, how services were organised, and how cross-sector integration was enacted in everyday practice. A reflexive, thematic analysis was implemented to examine factors supporting or hindering integration. People with lived experience of homelessness were involved throughout the design, conduct and analysis of the research, led by our homelessness charity partner, Groundswell. 

Findings

We identified varied models of service provision, including  specialist in-reach and outreach healthcare, housing and addiction services, often co-located in community settings or hostels.   In some areas, multidisciplinary team meetings brought together cross-sector staff, whereas other models were more reactive and ad-hoc. Several models targeted specific sub-groups, such as women.  Drawing on STEW, integration was strongest when staff developed trusting inter organisational relationships, and flexible, co produced approaches to care. Barriers included siloed cultures, short term funding, unclear accountability, data sharing challenges and persistent gaps in mental health provision. The candidacy lens highlighted how people experiencing homelessness valued outreach, continuity, advocacy and face to face contact, but described mental health and secondary care as fragmented and difficult to access. Analysis highlights the multiple factors that help or hinder delivery of integrated services in practice and highlights opportunities for improvement. 

Kelly Howells is an Applied Health Services Research Fellow at The University of Manchester, working across the School of Primary Care Research and Greater Manchester NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaborative. She has an interest in medical sociology, specialising in qualitative methods, health inequalities, the use of digital technologies in care delivery and participatory research methods. Her research focuses on improving access to and the safety of healthcare care for marginalised communities, including people experiencing homelessness, marginalised women and individuals receiving drug and alcohol support. 

Dan Bleksley is a researcher at Groundswell, London, where he specialises in participatory research methods. His professional experience in homelessness services has included several frontline positions. Dan has a master’s degree in Social Science Research Methods.

Chair: Nóra Teller, HU

Ella Hancock, UK: Rethinking Cohousing: Lessons from International Examples of Inclusive and Affordable Housing

This research explores whether cohousing can function as an inclusive and affordable housing option for people on low incomes, including those at risk of or experiencing homelessness. While cohousing is often associated with small, self-selecting and relatively affluent groups, this study examines how its core principles, shared spaces, resident participation and collective governance, can be adapted within social and affordable housing systems.

The research is informed by a prevention-focused and housing-led theoretical framing, drawing on homelessness prevention work and concepts of social infrastructure, wellbeing and relational support. It considers cohousing as a potential tool within primary and secondary prevention, particularly in addressing social isolation, housing insecurity and weak support networks.

Methods include a literature review, international field visits and qualitative interviews with residents, practitioners and housing providers. Case studies were examined across the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, alongside examples from the United Kingdom, Belgium and Spain. These were selected to reflect a range of tenures, governance models and levels of public or non-profit involvement.

Findings suggest that cohousing can support wellbeing, social connection and housing stability, particularly for groups such as young people leaving homelessness, refugees and older adults at risk of isolation. Shared spaces and collective structures can strengthen everyday relationships and informal support, contributing to tenancy sustainment and a sense of belonging.

However, significant barriers remain. Development costs, long and complex planning processes and expectations of high resident capacity often limit access for lower-income groups. The research finds that inclusive cohousing becomes viable when supported by public policy, non-profit delivery and alternative financing models. Without this, it risks remaining a niche model. The study concludes that cohousing has potential as part of a wider prevention toolkit, but requires structural support to be accessible at scale.

Ella Hancock is Programme Manager at World Habitat, where she leads on international housing work focused on homelessness. Her work brings together research, policy and practice to support system change and knowledge exchange across countries, with a particular focus on housing-led approaches. She has experience across the public, private and non-profit housing sectors, including local government and frontline homelessness services. Ella is also a Trustee at a charity supporting people experiencing homelessness. She holds a Master’s in International Development, and her Churchill Fellowship research explores cohousing as an inclusive and affordable housing model.

José Manuel Caballol, ES: Sustaining Autonomy After Homelessness: Longitudinal Evidence from Two Housing-Led Pilot Programs in Spain 

This paper presents longitudinal findings from the evaluation of two large-scale housing-led pilot programmes in Spain—Derechos a la Vivienda (DaV) and H4Y Futuro—implemented between 2022 and 2024 and designed to accelerate systemic transformation of homelessness services. The theoretical framing adopts a rights-based and prevention-oriented perspective, conceiving homelessness as a structural failure of housing, income, and administrative systems rather than an individual condition. Building on European evidence, the programmes operationalised community-based housing solutions and personalised supports to reduce institutional dependency and strengthen long-term autonomy.

Methodologically, the study applies a mixed-methods and longitudinal design. Quantitative data derive from follow-up surveys administered at 6 and 12 months to 398 participants who achieved an autonomous exit from homelessness, complemented by a predictive econometric model (GEE) to identify factors associated with sustained autonomy.

Qualitative evidence includes 40 indepth interviews capturing trajectories of stability, fragility, and relapse across three profiles: early intervention, deinstitutionalisation, and youth. The research has been conducted jointly by the HOGAR SÍ evaluation team and the consultancy firm ‘Fresno‘ Findings show that housing-led approaches generated significant and lasting impacts. At 12 months, 70–82% of respondents across profiles remained in autonomous housing, with higher rates among women and people with fewer years of homelessness. Employment emerged as the primary enabling factor, reinforcing identity, income stability, and access to rental housing. Regularisation of administrative status operated as a structural threshold: when unresolved, it limited access to employment and formal housing, strongly predicting relapse. Conversely, even short episodes of recurrence were often brief, with participants activating coping strategies learned during the programme. However, the evaluation also highlights persistent vulnerabilities—precarious rentals without contracts, insufficient public benefits, and limited preventive capacity in social services.

Overall, the results demonstrate that combining rapid access to community housing with flexible, person-centred supports can sustain exits from homelessness and reduce systemic churn, especially when paired with employment pathways and administrative regularisation.

José Manuel Caballol is the CEO of HOGAR SÍ, holds a degree in Psychology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and post-graduate degrees in Farmacology, Addictions and Brief Strategic Therapy. He has participated in different management programs at ESADE, IESE and Power MBA business schools. He has developed his professional career in HOGAR SI Foundation www.hogarsi.org (formerly RAIS) of which he is one of the founders.Since 2013, in alliance with Asociacion Provivienda, HOGAR SI has driven the development of Housing First in Spain In the last  few years HOGAR SÍ has proposed the concept of “Autonomous Ways Out” as the main indicator of success in the homelessness care system. 

Chair: Volker Busch-Geertsema, DE

Elisabetta Leni, Vaula Luomi, Riikka Perälä, Saija Turunen, FI: The impact of Finnish Housing First on the use of benefits, social and healthcare services

This study evaluates the impact of the Finnish Housing First approach on the utilization of benefits and social and healthcare services. Since 2008, Finland has used Housing First as a systemic strategy to reduce homelessness. This strategy provides immediate access to permanent housing with individually tailored support, regardless of sobriety or treatment compliance. Although the Finnish model is internationally recognized for effectively reducing homelessness, there is limited evidence on its effects on service utilization and economic consequences. We conducted a retrospective evaluation of Housing First in the Finnish cities of Helsinki and Espoo. We focused on formerly homeless individuals placed in Housing First in 2018 and 2019. Using linked administrative data from municipal social and health services, secondary healthcare, and population registers from 2016 to 2021, we tracked service use two years before and two years after placement. As a counterfactual, we used a comparison group of individuals who were assessed for placement but remained on waiting lists for at least two years. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we estimated changes in service use and benefits received. Our results show that Housing First reduces the use of rehabilitation and heavily supported housing services. It has a mixed effect on healthcare use and increases contacts with social services. It also has no significant impact on benefits and allowances paid. These findings will have important policy implications both nationally and internationally, as they shed light on the service use and cost implications of implementing the Finnish Housing First model.

Elisabetta Leni has a PhD in Economics from the University of Essex and several years of experience as a manager in the no profit sector in Italy. Since March 2021, she has worked at Y-Säätiö doing research on homelessness and social housing. She has done research on Housing First using register data and she is currently working on a cost-benefit analysis of Housing First and an impact evaluation of new social work practices with the City of Helsinki.

Vaula Luomi is a Research Assistant at Y-Foundation. She works in a project that provides knowledge for the City of Helsinki in its efforts to eradicate long-term homelessness and improve the inclusion and wellbeing of people with homelessness background. Vaula is currently completing her master’s degree in social policy at Tampere University. She has also previously worked as a housing advisor.

Riikka Perälä received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Helsinki in 2012. Her research interests focus on the position of vulnerable citizen groups within welfare and housing policies and service systems. She has examined these themes particularly in relation to housing and homelessness policies and has contributed to policy development through participation in several expert groups.  Currently, she works as a postdoctoral researcher at Y-Säätiö.

Saija Turunen is the Head of Research at Y-Foundation in Finland, where she has worked since 2017. She studied and built her career in social research in the UK, where she founded and led her own research consultancy and taught research methods at Bangor University in North Wales. She received her PhD from Bangor University in 2001. Saija also co-leads the Knowledge Development work cluster of the Housing First Europe Hub.

Felipe Estay and Ignacio Eissmann, Chile: Fidelity to the Housing First Model in Chile: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of Program Implementation

This paper examines the implementation of the Housing First model in Chile through a systematic evaluation of program fidelity, contributing to international debates on homelessness policy and implementation. While Housing First has been widely studied across Europe and North America, evidence from Latin America remains scarce, limiting opportunities for comparative and global learning .

The study is guided by three research questions: (1) What is the level of fidelity to Housing First core principles in the Chilean Vivienda Primero program, and how does it compare to international benchmarks? (2) How does implementation time influence fidelity and program maturation? (3) What contextual factors shape the implementation of Housing First in a Global South setting?

The research employs a sequential mixed-methods design combining quantitative fidelity assessment (12 teams and 78 professionals using the Pathways Housing First Fidelity Scale) with qualitative data from 25 professional focus groups and 35 participant interviews. A multilevel analytical approach allows for examining both organizational and temporal dynamics of implementation.

Findings show that overall fidelity is high (87% at group level), comparable to results reported in European and North American programs, despite operating in more constrained structural conditions. A significant positive association between implementation time and fidelity suggests that program maturation is critical to achieving high-quality implementation. However, limitations in housing markets and service provision affect specific dimensions such as housing choice and service array.

By explicitly comparing these findings with international evidence, the paper contributes to ongoing European discussions on the transferability of Housing First across diverse welfare regimes. It introduces the concept of “adaptive fidelity” to explain how core program principles can be maintained while accommodating contextual constraints. The Chilean case highlights the importance of incorporating Global South experiences into comparative analysis, offering insights relevant for both South–South exchange and more reflexive North–South dialogue on homelessness policy and practice.

Felipe Estay holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Bristol and a Master’s degree in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He leads research initiatives in Chile and across Latin America on homelessness. He is Director of Corporación Moviliza and co-founder of the Center for Research and Advocacy to End Homelessness in Latin America (CISCAL). He has worked at Chile’s Ministry of Social Development and has conducted research and consulting for the public sector and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Ignacio Eissmann is a sociologist and Master in Government and Society from Alberto Hurtado University and a PhD in Social Work at Boston College. He leads research initiatives and conferences across Latin America on homelessness. He is co-founder of Corporación Moviliza and co-founder and Director of the Center for Research and Advocacy to End Homelessness in Latin America (CISCAL), where he leads regional applied research and policy initiatives. He previously served as Director of Research and Advocacy at the Jesuit Migrant Service and is currently a research professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Andrés Bello University in Chile.

Chair: Paula Mayock, IE 

Michael Sanders and Dimitris Vallis, UK: A Jump Start into Adulthood; The Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Housing Outcomes for Young People Leaving Foster Care in the UK

Young people leaving foster or residential care (care leavers) often encounter substantial economic and social hardships as they transition to independent adulthood. This includes far higher likelihood of experiencing homelessness than their peers who are not care experienced, with some studies suggesting that as many as one in four will experience homelessness before their 25th birthday. Elsewhere in the world, including Canada, evidence shows that one off unconditional cash transfers can be effective at reducing homelessness, but the evidence is relatively scarce. To assess whether an unconditional cash transfer can improve their outcomes, we conducted a randomised controlled trial in which 100 young care leavers in the UK were allocated to receive a one-off £2,000 unconditional payment, with 200 others serving as controls. Follow-up analyses at 6 and 12 months indicate that cash recipients experienced greater housing stability, as well as being less likely to be in either temporary accommodation or sofa-surfing. They also experience higher subjective wellbeing, and stronger social connectedness, along with evidence of reduced arrests and convictions, as well as fewer hospital stays. Although some effects did not persist up to the 12-month point, the overall pattern indicates consistently positive impacts across outcomes. This study provides the first experimental evidence from the UK (or anywhere else in the developed world) on unconditional cash transfers for care leavers and offers broader insights for policies aimed both at supporting care leavers as well as the broader literature on the efficacy of cash transfers trials.

Michael Sanders is a Professor of Public Policy at King’s College London, and Director of the School for Government at King’s. His research makes use of experimental methods to uncover the effects of interventions and policies on a range of outcomes, with a particular focus on improving outcomes for children and young adults. He is an associate of the centre for homelessness impact. He was previously the founding Chief Executive of What Works for Children’s Social Care. 

Lukas Schlittler, Yann Bochsler, Eva Gammenthaler, Jörg Dittmann, Zsolt Temesvary and Tanja Klöti, CH: Life Situations and Perspectives of Homeless Youths in Switzerland

Little is known about the scope and structure of homelessness in Switzerland. Dittmann et al. (2022) counted 543 adults currently experiencing homelessness in eight major Swiss cities in one survey week in December 2020 and March 2021 each. Of these, 18% were aged 18 – 25 years. They confirm factors in the international literature (e.g., financial problems, lack of official residence status) to matter for adult homelessness in Switzerland. However, other factors (e.g., health problems, addiction) were found to be less dominant. A 2015 Canadian survey on youth homelessness has shown that the first experience of homelessness is often made below the age of 16 (40.1% of respondents, c.f. Gaetz et al., 2016).

This contribution is part of a mixed-methods research project on youth homelessness in Switzerland funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). We focus on persons aged 16 – 25 years. Our understanding of ‘youth homelessness’ is based on the operational categories 1 – 10 of the European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (FEANTSA, 2018). Data is collected through a quantitative survey which is primarily run online and through problem-centered qualitative interviews. The survey runs throughout the four seasons from December 2025 until December 2026. Contact with participants is established via night structures (e.g., shelters) and day structures (e.g., soup kitchens) in four major Swiss cities: Geneva, Lausanne, Bern and Zurich – and via social media channels of these organisations. Our quantitative data is complemented by data on adult homelessness in Switzerland (Dittmann et al., 2025) and data from organisations in these four cities (e.g., night shelters).

Our findings will describe the life situations and perspectives of homeless youths in Switzerland and will show to what extent factors for youth homelessness in the international literature matter for them. Moreover, they will contribute to the overarching project goal of understanding and improving capabilities of youths experiencing homelessness in Switzerland.

Lukas Schlittler, Dr., FHNW, studied economics and social sciences at the universities of Geneva and Bocconi. He works as a scientific collaborator at FHNW. He completed his PhD at the University of Bern under the supervision of professors Michael Gerfin and Zachary Parolin. In his dissertation, he discussed poverty measurement in Switzerland and compared two Swiss active labour market programs targeted at refugees. He studies homelessness, poverty, social assistance and labour market integration using a quantitative approach. His research previously focused on poverty measurement using linked administrative, survey and cantonal tax data – and currently focuses on homeless youths in Switzerland.

Yann Bochsler, Dr., FHNW, studied political science and law at the universities of Bern and Lyon. He works as a scientific collaborator at the Institute for Social Planning, Organizational Change and Urban Development, FHNW School of Social Work. His main research interests are poverty alleviation, welfare policies and adequate housing. He completed his doctoral project on the subject of young adults without vocational training in social assistance at the University of Geneva under the mentorship of the professors Carlo Knöpfel and Jean-Michel Bonvin. He is a member of the research committee "Social Problems" of the Swiss Society for Sociology (SGS).

Eva Gammenthaler, MA, FHNW, studied political and social sciences at University of Lausanne, international relations at University of Brussels and social work at FHNW. She has worked with NGOs in the fields of politics, migration and youth. Since 2017, she has worked in outreach social work and acts as co-director since 2019. She teaches on outreach social work, addiction, poverty and homelessness as an external lecturer at FHNW and BFH. She works as a research assistant on the project on youth homelessness at FHNW. She is a founding board member of Rêves sûrs, which runs the youth emergency shelter in Bern.

Zsolt Temesváry is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzer-land. He studied social work and completed his PhD in Sociology and Social Policy at the Univer-sity of Budapest. His primary research focuses on qualitative studies of homelessness and other forms of severe social vulnerability.

Jörg Dittmann, Prof. Dr., studied sociology at the university of Heidelberg, Germany. Since September 2024 he has been the head of Institute for Social Planning, Urban Development and Organisational Change, School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) and has held the position of a professor since 2014. His research contribution is the empirical analysis of poverty, social exclusion, and structured vulnerability; the research on governance responses to forced displacement and housing exclusion including intersectional and international research cooperation and transdisciplinary knowledge production.

 Chair: Freek Spinnewijn, BE

Matej Sedlar, NL: No Place to Be: Conceptualising the Jurisprudence of the ECtHR on Homelessness and its Criminalisation

In Lacatus v Switzerland, the ECtHR ruled that a law prohibiting begging violates the applicant’s private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In this 2021 landmark judgement concerning an applicant experiencing homelessness, the ECtHR highlighted their lack of alternative means of income, the strictness of the ban, and the particular vulnerability of the applicant, due to their precarious situation. This individualised and compassionate approach of the Court did not survive for long. In 2024, the ECtHR declared a similar complaint inadmissible in Dian v. Denmark. Although possessing many factual similarities, the Court ruled that because the applicant had a hypothetical access to Danish social benefits, received money from informal work, and sent small amounts of money home, the case is inadmissible and the applicant does not deserve protection against the begging ban. No explanation was provided for this sudden shift in the Court's attitude towards criminalisation of homelessness in the judgment, nor in other academic literature.

This paper attempts to fill that gap through a network analysis of the above-mentioned judgments and a qualitative keyword-based case-law analysis of all other ECtHR jurisprudence on homelessness. In doing so, the paper determines the way homelessness influences the outcome of complaints in front of the ECtHR, focusing on narratives and legal principles that shape the scope and content of state obligations under Article 8. Then, the paper critically examines the legal reasoning in Lacatus v. Switzerland and Dian v. Denmark, to explain the difference in outcome between the two cases while using insights found through the qualitative case-law analysis. Moreover, the paper also provides a theoretical framework to help understand how such complaints may be decided in the future. 

Matej Sedlar is a PhD researcher at the Department of General Law Studies at the University of Groningen. His research interests include EU human rights law, methodology of international courts, interdisciplinary case law analysis and legal theory. In his PhD project, Matej focuses on the impact of international human rights law, courts and institutions on domestic law regulating homelessness, particularly following the ECtHR’s recent decision in Dian v. Denmark, and their stigmatising potential. He has previously engaged in scholarship on the use of vulnerability in the case law of the ECtHR, as well as minority rights.

Joanne Bretherton, UK: Policing Homelessness in the UK: Exploring the Relationships Between Homelessness Services and Law Enforcement

There are tensions between the policing focus on maintenance of public order and effective, integrated, trauma informed responses to long term and repeated homelessness in Europe. These tensions centre around how best to meet the needs of a population who present with mental illness, addiction, trauma and an array of care and treatment needs, but who also have high frequency contact with criminal justice systems. 

Much of the existing research focuses on Police responses to people sleeping rough and living in irregular settlements/encampments. There is another, important and hitherto neglected set of interactions between the Police and people experiencing homelessness. The PHRASE (Policing Housing Precarity and Homelessness) project explored the multidimensional nature of the relationships between policing and homelessness services. PHRASE has gathered data on the nature of homelessness services’ relationships with the Police, the experiences of people using and living in those services with the Police and explored new dimensions of the interactions between criminal justice systems and homelessness, including for women and young people experiencing homelessness.

This presentation will highlight findings from this two-year study focusing on homelessness accommodation services in two English cities with collaboration from two of the UK’s regional police forces. It will explore how people experiencing homelessness related to the police, within complex and fragmented systems, and the tensions between criminal justice systems and the homelessness sector. It will also consider the challenges for homelessness services in keeping the people they work with, their staff and volunteers safe from crime, while protecting people whose criminality intersects with multiple and complex needs. 

Dr Joanne Bretherton is an Associate Professor in the School for Business and Society at the University of York, UK.  She is an interdisciplinary researcher whose core interests in homelessness include both theoretical and impact-driven research and writing on the gender dynamics of trajectories through homelessness and the intersections between domestic abuse and homelessness. She has published widely on homelessness and her recent publications include the Routledge Handbook of Homelessness. Joanne has been involved, as a Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator in over forty externally funded research projects, including a series of projects centred on the Housing First model.

Anna Sauerwein, DE: Organizing Against Criminalization and Displacement: The Homeless Movement in San Francisco, USA

Across California, homelessness is increasingly governed through punitive urban policies that criminalise poverty and exclude unhoused people from public space. Practices such as encampment sweeps, sit-lie laws, and intensified policing often result in displacement, fines, incarceration, and the confiscation or destruction of personal belongings, including medication, identification documents, and survival equipment. These practices raise serious human rights concerns and contribute to the ongoing displacement of unhoused people.

This paper examines organising practices within the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco, a grassroots organisation of unhoused and low-income residents mobilising against criminalisation, displacement, and housing injustice. Situated at the intersection of social movement studies, urban sociology, critical social work, and transformation studies, the paper conceptualises organising as a transformative practice that responds to and resists criminalisation and displacement by linking mutual support, political mobilisation, and collective self-empowerment under conditions of extreme precarity.

The analysis draws on four months of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation in meetings, outreach activities, and office settings, as well as ethnographic interviews with current and former members and audio recordings of selected meetings. The material is analysed using trans-sequential analysis (TSA), a qualitative reconstructive method originally developed for highly structured institutional contexts and here applied to the informal and dynamic field of community organising.

The findings demonstrate how organising practices generate forms of political participation and collective agency in contexts shaped by criminalisation, displacement, and social exclusion. Central to these practices are radical forms of accessibility and “low-threshold” organising that enable participation while maintaining collective accountability and political continuity. The paper contributes to debates on the governance and criminalisation of homelessness by showing how grassroots organising functions as a site of resistance and collective action among highly marginalised actors.

Anna Kristina Sauerwein completed her doctorate in Educational Sciences in 2025. As a social worker, she has been working on homelessness for over twenty years, engaging with the topic in both practice and research. She currently works as an Outreach Worker at Gangway e.V. in Berlin. Her teaching focuses on homelessness, streetwork, and social work practice in low-threshold settings, with a particular emphasis on international perspectives across Germany, the USA, and European contexts. Her work seeks to bridge research and practice to better understand and support forms of collective action and resistance in contexts shaped by criminalisation and extreme social marginalisation. 

Chair: Boróka Fehér, HU

Judith G. Gonyea, USA: Gendering Older Women’s Homelessness: Family Connections, Caregiving, and Precarity

Background:  Research suggests that women’s homelessness experiences differ from men’s. The gendered nature of life experiences—discrimination, marginalization, and sexual violence—contribute to a heightened risk of precarity.   This study extends the research through examining the role of care work (unpaid and paid) in the lives of older homeless women.   Although caregiving has been studied among younger homeless women accompanied by children, there is scarce research on unaccompanied older homeless women. This gap may reflect a false assumption (or stereotype) that these women are estranged from family. Yet, prior research shows that family remains a nucleus in their lives. Aim: The objective of this qualitative study, informed by life course and intersectionality frameworks,  was to explore from women’s perspective the lived experiences of care work as part of their homelessness journey.

Methods: The study involved 15 semi-structured individual interviews.  Participant eligibility criteria were homelessness for at least one month, being in their fifties, and English speaking.  Coding was done through a funneling process, with the cumulative phases of data analysis involving the generation of themes and subthemes to guide the interpretation of meaning.

Results: Four themes emerged: the importance of the carer role as an identity (i.e., mother, daughter), the carer role as a precipitant to housing precarity, the use of adaptive strategies for family connection and care work, and the impacts of family interactions/care work on women’s homelessness challenges.

Judith G. Gonyea is a Professor in the School of Social Work and Center for Innovation in Social Sciences at Boston University.  Her research explores the depth and consequences of health, social, and economic disparities in later life and policy solutions to “unequal aging” in contemporary society.  She is an elected fellow in Gerontological Society of America,  National Association on Social Insurance, and American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and currently serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Aging Studies, Social Policy and Aging, British Journal of Social Work, Frontiers in Global Women’s Health Journal, and Public Policy & Aging Report

Hanna Mac innes and Matti Salonen-Wirehag, SE: Risk of Homelessness among older people in Sweden: A Growing Social Challenge

This study examines risk factors for homelessness and eviction among older persons in Sweden using register-based data and multivariable logistic regression analysis. Against a background of demographic ageing and increasingly constrained housing markets, the article focuses on how financial vulnerability, gender, and spatial context shape housing insecurity in later life. The results demonstrate that indebtedness is the most powerful predictor of homelessness and eviction among older people, far outweighing the effects of demographic and geographic factors. Men and residents of major metropolitan areas, particularly Stockholm and Gothenburg, face significantly elevated risks even after controlling for debt. Using a life course perspective, the findings suggest that the years when most persons in Sweden transition into retirement are particularly vulnerable years in relation to eviction. Interpreted through the ETHOS framework, the findings highlight eviction as a critical transition point into housing exclusion in older age. The study contributes to European homelessness research by identifying structural pathways into late-life housing insecurity within a Nordic welfare-state context and by underscoring the importance of prevention-oriented interventions targeting debt and metropolitan housing pressures. 

Matti Wirehag, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research focuses on homelessness, housing exclusion, and the governance of local welfare systems, with particular attention to access to housing and services for marginalized groups, including undocumented migrants. Wirehag has published in journals such as the European Journal of Homelessness and International Journal of Social Welfare and is engaged in European research and policy networks for example PICUM. Alongside his academic work, Wirehag has extensive experience in the non-profit sector in working on homelessness and irregular migration in a local, national and international context. 

Chair: Nóra Teller, HU

Nicholas Pleace, UK: Making Housing First possible in an expensive European city: Building and implementing the City of York homelessness strategy

This presentation explores the development and implementation of the City of York homelessness strategy from the perspective of University of York academics who became directly involved in the process. York, in the North of England, alongside having been a continually inhabited place for some 10,000 years and boasting the largest gothic cathedral in England, is also one of the ten least affordable housing markets in the UK. The process of finding new and sometimes drastic measures to increase social housing supply and building multidisciplinary research teams for a Housing First led strategy is explored. The presentation also considers and contrasts the theory, assumptions and practice of knowledge transfer partnerships and turning research into evidence- based policy and is in part an examination of what the realities of this can involve. Examining 223 people in the City’s resettlement pathways for lone adults experiencing homelessness in 2022, York found that 42% had made multiple presentations and 68% had experienced trauma. In order to improve outcomes and reduce high levels of expenditure on repeated and long-term experience of homelessness associated with multiple and complex needs, York took the decision to replace much of its congregate and communal supported housing with a Housing First model. The goal is to offer 250 Housing First homes in a city of some 200,000 people. York has also begun to redesign and extend its services for women, who represent just under one third of lone adults experiencing homelessness in the city. This presentation tracks the development of the 2024-29 homelessness strategy focused on Housing First, records the progress made to date and considers the challenges ahead.

Nicholas Pleace is Professor of Housing and Society at the University of York. He is currently Associate Dean for Research and Impact in the School for Business and Society. He is a former Director of the Centre for Housing Policy. He is a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness operating under the auspices of FEANTSA. Nicholas has been involved in research on the lived experience of homelessness, evaluations of policy and practice for people experiencing homelessness, including multiple projects on Housing First and both UK and international research, for over 30 years.

Martin Wagener, Griet Roets, Koen Hermans, Jean-François Orianne, Laure-lise Robben, Lore Dewanckel, Nicolas Jacquet, Jef Timmermans, BE: Reevaluating Preparedness to Future Crises - Homelessness and Public Policy Challenges

In contemporary European welfare states, homelessness remains a  complex  social problem. Since the emergence of modern society, public policies to combat homelessness have been developed following three paradigms: emergency-oriented, integration-oriented and punitive- oriented. Based on the findings of a recent research project in Belgium dealing with homelessness in times of covid-19, we explore how social work cope with the drastic digitalization of their practices (to deal with lockdown measures and social distancing protocols) to maintain ad hoc strategies to provide goods and services to the homeless. Inspired by the work of the critical scholars Niklas Luhmann and Luc Boltanski, we discuss State rationales and social work institutions’ strategies to combat homelessness in this specific period. This health crisis offered an opportunity for the State (political system) to increase its autonomy of action in this field of public intervention: on the one hand, by simplifying public action through a single emergency paradigm; on the other hand, by keeping beneficiaries (and partners) at a distance through the digitalisation of social work. This unprecedented episode raises the question of the legitimacy of social work and its professional expertise. The presentation is based on a common research grant from Belgian science policy research between 4 universities.

Martin Wagener is Professor in sociology at CIRTES (Centre for interdisciplinary research on Work, State and Society) at UCLouvain. He has been conducting both qualitative and quantitative evaluative research in different sectors concerning work, the organisation of the welfare state, the fight against poverty and social work.

Griet Roets is Associate Professor in Social Work at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, at Ghent University. Her research interests include social work, theoretical conceptualisations of citizenship and social rights, intersections of poverty, gender, disability, space/place, age and migration, and qualitative research methodologies.

Koen Hermans is project leader at LUCAS and a member of the Social Policy and Social Work team at the Centre for sociological research and LUCAS. LUCAS is an interdisciplinary research centre of KU Leuven, active in the fields of care and welfare. Koen Hemans has a far-reaching publication list on homelessness, the social support for vulnerable groups, and on social work practice.

Jean-François Orianne is professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Liège. He has conducted numerous research projects on unemployment, professional training, flexicurity, discrimination, labor market intermediaries and poverty.

Laure-lise Robben is a postdoctoral researcher at LUCAS, KU Leuven (Belgium). Her main research interests include homelessness, human and social rights, vulnerability, and poverty.

Lore Dewanckel is a Parttime Doctor Assistant working at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University (Belgium) and part-time Postdoctoral Researcher with a PhD in Social Work, currently working on the Belspo Post-Covid project PANHOME researching trajectories of homeless people and adaptations of local welfare networks during the pandemic.

Nicolas Jacquet is a sociologist, researcher and lecturer at the University of Liège (Belgium). He completed a joint doctoral thesis between the University of Liège and the University of Ghent on childhood poverty, entitled ‘The erosion of social protection principles: qualitative research on the role of social work in the lives of citizens in precarious situations’. Since March 2024, he has been conducting postdoctoral research at the University of Liège and the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve on the issue of homelessness during the Covid period.

Jef Timmermans is a researcher at LUCAS, KULeuven (Belgium). His main research interests include social housing, homelessness, squatting and social work. Currently he is conducting research on homelessness during the Covid crisis in the Belspo Post-Covid project PANHOME.

Chair: Lars Benjaminsen, DK

Edgar Aubisse, FR: Homeless People Living Temporarily in Conventional Housing with Family and Friends (Due to Lack of Housing): An Invisible Form of Poor Housing

In France, of the 4.2 million people living in poor housing conditions, more than 600 000 are living with family or some friends against their will – nearly twice the number of homeless people (Fondation pour le logement, 2026). Although classified in the « without personal accommodation » category by official statistics, in the same way as the homeless, this form of accommodation is often portrayed as a « temporary », « trivial » and ultimately « harmless » solution for those affected. Contrary to these notions, the aim of this article is precisely to demonstrate how being forced to live with family or friends constitutes a form of substandard housing.

In the first section, we examine who these people in temporary accommodation are and their background. As the last safety net before homelessness, staying with others often lies midway between living on the streets, emergency accommodation and permanent housing (Lanzaro, 2016). Consequently, drawing on the Housing Survey, we show that women, younger people and those arriving in France for the first time are most affected by this poor housing situation. This first section also addresses the difficulties in quantifying the number of people who rely on such accommodation, particularly due to its « underground » nature.

The second phase highlights the daily routine and living conditions of staying with a third party. The various interviews conducted all reveal the same thing: within the flat, one must know how to « make oneself as inconspicuous as possible », adjusting one’s behavior and schedule so as not to cause any disturbance (FORS, 2012). In certain other situations, being taken in requires financial or service-related compensation, and in more serious cases, sexual favors. Under these circumstances, some people prefer to sleep on the streets rather than stay where they have a roof over their heads.

Edgar Aubisse is a young researcher who studied quantitative sociology and has been working as a research officer at La Fondation pour le Logement des Défavorisés (former Fondation Abbé Pierre).  He published 2023 on difficulties the poorest households have accessing social housing with other social scientists and economists from Science Po Paris.

Pierre Eloy, Elsa Garcin, Amandine Lebugle, Juliette Malbrel, Jacques Pisarik, FR: Shedding Light on People Staying Temporarily with Others: Evidence from the Hebtiers Study in the Paris Region

Both the ETHOS and ETHOS Light typologies classify living temporarily with family and friends due to lack of housing as a form of homelessness and housing exclusion. Although such situations are thought to be common, they are seldom captured in surveys. Only a few estimates of the number of people experiencing these situations at a given time, or over the life course, can be found in the literature.

 The 'Hebtiers' (staying temporarily with others) project, launched in 2023 by the Samusocial de Paris Observatory, investigates these situations among users of homelessness services in the Paris region. It focuses on individuals who have stayed with others (not only family and friends) at least once in the last 12 months. A quantitative survey, conducted in 2024 and 2025, based on a random sample of day centres, reveals that 50% of people experiencing homelessness have stayed with others at least once in the last 12 months. Its findings also provide insight into their trajectories, their living and housing conditions.  

Highlighting some of these results, this contribution aims to encourage reflection on how these situations are categorised. While the definition 'living temporarily in conventional housing with family and friends' is commonly used, our results show that it can be quite restrictive.

Indeed, approximately as many individuals have stayed with complete strangers over the past 12 months (28%) as with family (26%) or friends (31%). Among the most recent stays, 85% took place in conventional housing. However, other situations have emerged, e.g. people hosted by individuals living in accommodations for homeless people or for migrants. Others stayed in places not intended for habitation, such as cars and workplaces. Our findings also show disparities due to gender, with women more likely to experience poor living conditions. 

Moreover, our findings reveal high levels of exposure to violence, particularly among women, alongside widespread experiences of rooflessness. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the identification and description of these situations, as well as to ensure faster access to adequate accommodation.

Pierre Eloy is a Lecturer (Maître de conférences) in Demography at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, affiliated with CRIDUP and the Institut Convergences Migrations. His research focuses on migration and residential trajectories, homelessness, and housing precarity, with a particular emphasis on immigrant families. He sits on the scientific committee of the Sans-Domicile 2025 survey (Insee/DREES) and leads the TRAVIRI project, a qualitative longitudinal follow-up of people without personal housing conducted in its wake. He co-directs the Master Migrations programme (Paris 1/EHESS).

Elsa Garcin is a socio-demographer. She is the social observation manager of the Paris’ SIAO direction.

Amandine Lebugle holds a PhD in demography. She has been working at Samusocial of Paris since 2019. She has conducted research on fertility fall in rural areas of Iran (2000-2008), violence against women in France (2010-2018), homeless people using the metro as shelter in Paris (2019), post-secondary students attending foodbanks in the greater Paris region (2021-2022), users of the 24/7 Homeless helpline (since 2019) and the Hebtiers Survey (since 2023).

Juliette Malbrel studied sociology and demography at Paris-Saclay University. She is a doctoral candidate at CRIDUP and has held a CIFRE contract at the Samusocial Observatory in Paris since 2025, where she is conducting research on “People living with others through the lens of the Hebtiers survey: an analysis of discourses, life trajectories, and living conditions.”

Jacques Pisarik studied economics and social sciences at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Paris School of Economics. He joined the Samusocial de Paris Observatory in 2021. His current research focuses on access to health care, social rights and housing of homeless migrants in the Paris region.

Chair: Ruth Owen, BE

Aneta Szarfenberg, PL: Migrant Homelessness Risk from the Perspective of Five Mechanisms

The risk of homelessness among migrants in Poland is internally differentiated and shaped not only by housing and economic conditions, but also by legal status and access to support systems. Particularly significant are the differences between people from Ukraine covered by a special legal status introduced after February 2022, migrants with other residence statuses, and those remaining outside formal protection frameworks, for whom the risk of housing exclusion is considerably higher. The presentation draws on a broad understanding of housing exclusion inspired by the ETHOS typology and on Nicholas Pleace’s approach to migrant homelessness. From this perspective, homelessness risk is analysed through five interlocking mechanisms which do not operate separately, but instead form configurations of risk leading to housing instability and social exclusion.

The presentation concerns the findings of a study conducted in Poland in 2025 using methodological triangulation. The study included desk research, a nationwide survey addressed to social assistance centres (326 responses, 13.2%), and 52 in-depth interviews with workers in the support system, representatives of non-governmental organisations, decision-makers, and migrant women and men in diverse housing situations. The material was supplemented with focus groups with representatives of institutions and NGOs.

The findings show that the risk of homelessness does not result from single deficits, but from the overlap and mutual reinforcement of several mechanisms. The structural-economic mechanism creates the basic context of risk through high rental costs and limited access to stable accommodation. The legal-institutional mechanism acts as a key filter of access to employment, benefits, and housing assistance, and one of its particularly important dimensions turns out to be the fragmentation of the support system. The remaining mechanisms reinforce this risk through employment instability, non-recognition of qualifications, discrimination, and the effects of migration-related trauma combined with limited access to culturally competent support. Within this arrangement, non-governmental organisations perform the function of actors compensating for the inconsistency of the system, which reveals, rather than resolves, its structural gaps. The study shows that analysing the risk of homelessness among migrants and designing support measures requires a relational approach linking housing, social, migration, and anti-discrimination policies.

Aneta Szarfenberg is an evaluator and social policy researcher, she graduated from the University of Warsaw with a degree in social policy. She completed postgraduate studies in evaluation and urban revitalization. Currently a doctoral candidate in pedagogy, her research interests focus on grassroots initiatives and institutionalization processes. She is interested in the practical application of human rights, social inequality, and marginalization. In her “free time”, she organizes Living Libraries and promotes this method of anti-discrimination education.

Mike Allen, IE: Results of the 2025 EOH Comparative Research: Not-EU Migrant Homelessness

This report examines the nature, extent, and systemic responses to non-EU migrant homelessness across 16 EU Member States and the UK. While most European homelessness is experienced by Europeans, non-EU migrants face unique vulnerabilities and are significantly overrepresented in major urban rough-sleeping populations.

The scale of the issue is tied to broader migration trends. In 2024, there were 998,530 asylum applications within the EU. Additionally, over 37,000 unaccompanied minors arrived in the same year. Data on irregular migrants remains severely limited across all Member States due to the "hidden" nature of their housing status and limited interaction with formal services.

The research identifies several critical points where the risk of homelessness increases:

• Transition Points: Risks peak when individuals transition from asylum seeker accommodation to international protection status, particularly if housing support is withdrawn rapidly.
• Administrative Barriers: Delays in "regularization," local connection rules, and complex bureaucracy hinder access to the labor market and social welfare.
• Ageing Out: Unaccompanied minors face heightened risks upon turning 18 when specialized child protection support typically ceases.
• Overwhelmed Systems: In countries like Belgium, Ireland, and Greece, asylum systems have become overwhelmed, leading to direct homelessness for those seeking protection.
• Barriers to Integration: Beyond legal status, non-EU migrants face structural obstacles including pan-EU affordable housing shortages, language barriers, and poverty. The report also highlights racism and cultural intolerance as significant hurdles to securing stable housing.

Non-EU migrant homelessness is not a monolithic issue; it is a diverse phenomenon shaped by varying national policies and migration levels. The report concludes that current evidence gaps must be addressed to create effective responses. Sustained support and faster integration into host-country systems are essential to preventing homelessness among those granted international protection.

Chair: Volker Busch-Geertsema, DE

Hilary Silver and Rebecca Morris, USA: Private Housing, Public Housing, and US Homelessness Rates

1) Theoretical framing

Much of the economics literature examining American homelessness rates across Continuums of Care jurisdictions focus on conditions in the housing market (Colburn & Ahearn 2022; Hanratty 2017; Corinth 2017; Byrne et al. 2021; Treglia, Byrne, & Tamla Rai 2026).  To be sure, “affordability” -- local rents relative to local incomes -- will be partially responsible for homelessness rates, as will growth in the private housing supply.  But the government can target assistance to the neediest, alleviating some of the market stress on low-income households and thereby, reducing homelessness (Schachner, Byon, & Painter 2024).  This paper asks whether a greater local supply of subsidized housing reduces homelessness, controlling for general conditions in the housing market. 

2) Methods 

The first-difference regression analysis is based upon nearly 400 Continuums of Care in the United States.  Homelessness rates refer to 2020 and 2024, predicted with lagged private and public housing variables in 2019 and 2023.  These include the share of total housing units that are conventional public housing, project-based Section 8 rental housing, low-income tax credit subsidized affordable housing, housing choice vouchers that subsidize renters, and the shelter bed inventory relative to local homelessness. 

Homelessness figures include total and unsheltered Point-in-Time counts in late January as well as HMIS total unduplicated shelter clients over the year, collected by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They are predicted both logged and unlogged.  Housing indicators are drawn from the US Census’ American Housing Survey, HUD’s Housing Inventory Counts and PD&R, and the National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s Housing Preservation Database, complemented with basic demographics, temperature, and other factors, and combined with HUD’s Point-in-Time and annual homelessness counts.  Independent variables at the census tract or county level were adjusted to CoC boundaries using Tom Byrne’s crosswalk (Tomhbyrne. (2018). Tomhbyrne/HUD-COC-Geography-Crosswalk. GitHub. https://github.com/tomhbyrne/HUD-CoC-Geography-Crosswalk). 

3) Findings 

The cross-sectional regression models on total and unsheltered homelessness rates (logged or unlogged) account for nearly two-thirds of the cross-CoC variation (adjusted R-square).  The model is less predictive of HMIS annual shelter homelessness rates than it is of PIT rates, but produces very similar results for 2024 and 2023 PIT rates and logged dependent variables. 

Statistically significant variables included: a smaller number of shelter beds per homeless resident; a greater share of housing units that are public housing and voucher-subsidized; and a greater dollar value of HUD’s award to the CoC per homeless resident.  Significant private housing market conditions included [gross rents], the share of households composed of nonrelatives, percent of one-person households, percent of households that did not move over the past year, the share of crowded rental units, and the share of housing units that are in vehicles.  Covariate controls were also significant, including the poverty rate, the unemployment rate, the share of households on income assistance, and average annual (or January) temperature.  Rents and rents relative to incomes (severe cost burden) are positively correlated with homelessness, but not significant in the multiple regressions.

The results indicate, contrary to expectation, that providing more publicly subsidized affordable housing is positively associated with local homelessness rates, even after holding private housing conditions constant.  This suggests that federal housing dollars are going to where they are most needed, but they are insufficient to reduce homelessness rates. These findings are contrary to a recent study with core-based metropolitan areas as units of analysis from 2017-2020 prior to the pandemic, using public housing data from the 2010 Census and without controls.  It is possible that the difference reflects a period effect, insofar as there was a significant and accelerating upward trend in overall homelessness from 2019 to 2023. After a brief period of relative stability during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022) due to historic federal intervention, the 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) count recorded 771,480 people experiencing homelessness—an 18% increase from 2023 and the highest number ever recorded since HUD began reporting in 2007.  In the change models between 2019 and 2024, homelessness rose more where the number of shelter beds increased and where the share of public housing, Section 8, and LIHTC stock fell more, and where the share of vouchers declined.  The loss of the public housing supply, along with the effects of crowding and rising rents over the pandemic period, seems to be adding to the problem of homelessness, but additional analysis is needed.

Hilary Silver is Professor of Sociology, International Affairs, and Public Policy at George Washington University and Professor Emerita of Sociology and Urban Studies at Brown University.  Her research focuses on social exclusion and policies to combat it around the world.

Rebecca Morris recently completed a PhD in Public Policy & Public Administration at George Washington University, where she is also a fellow. Her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management and The Milbank Quarterly. Her research focuses on the social safety net, particularly how government housing programs and community health centers intersect with social determinants of health and health outcomes.

Mareile Dedekind, DE: Mandatory Social Housing Quota

The GFF study on access to social housing adopts a human rights–based approach to housing policy and examines a mandatory social housing quota as an innovative legal instrument to address structural housing shortages and homelessness, using Berlin as a case study. Grounded in the right to adequate housing under Art. 11(1) ICESCR and the principle of non-retrogression, it frames access to housing as a concrete state obligation, particularly toward marginalized and low-income groups. This obligation is reinforced by the German constitutional framework, notably the welfare state principle and the right to a dignified minimum existence.

Methodologically, the study combines doctrinal legal analysis with policy analysis and the development and evaluation of a legislative proposal. It assesses existing housing, tenancy, and constitutional law alongside empirical data on housing supply, affordability, and homelessness. In doing so, it identifies structural barriers to access to housing and highlights the limits of new construction as a primary policy response.

The findings show that current legal and policy instruments fail to ensure equitable access to housing, particularly for homeless individuals, and do not adequately secure the accessibility dimension of the right to housing. In response, the paper introduces a draft law establishing a binding social housing quota for large-scale landlords. The model requires a fixed percentage of existing housing stock to be allocated as permanently price-restricted social housing, combined with a sub-quota prioritizing people with urgent housing needs. By activating existing housing stock, the approach enables immediate and durable improvements in access.

The analysis demonstrates that the proposed quota is compatible with constitutional and human rights obligations and gives concrete effect to the state’s duty to ensure access to adequate housing. It argues that a legally enforceable social housing quota constitutes a viable instrument to prevent homelessness and progressively realize the right to housing.

Mareile Dedekind LL.M. is a lawyer and litigation coordinator at the Society for Civil Rights (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V.), a German non-governmental organisation dedicated to advancing fundamental and human rights through strategic litigation and legal advocacy. Her work focuses on housing, homelessness, and migration, and contributes to efforts aimed at addressing structural inequalities and promoting the realization of social rights.

Chair: Laure-lise Robben 

Pathie Maphosa, Yogi Chandrasekar, Eoin O’Sullivan, IE: Patterns of Emergency Accommodation Exits in the Dublin Region by Single Adults and Families, 2017-2024

This paper investigates patterns of Emergency Accommodation (EA) exits among single adults and families in the Dublin region from 2017 to 2024.  Over this eight-year period, 10,052 single adults and 5,863 families (or 15,915 households) who were assessed as homeless under Section 2 of the Housing Act, 1988 by the four Local Authorities in the Dublin region were provided with EA and included in this study. The paper draws on administrative data from the Pathway Accommodation and Support System (PASS) from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2024 and includes all families and singles who entered EA for the first time during this period in the Dublin region. To ensure analytical consistency and meaningful longitudinal analysis, a minimum engagement period of two years for all included EA users was applied.

Our analysis of single and family homelessness in the Dublin region between 2017 and 2024 identifies a pattern of EA use that is shaped by duration, recurrence, and demographic characteristics. Drawing on extensive international and Irish research, we identify three distinct patterns of EA use: a short-term cluster (70% of families and 66% of singles), who experienced few episodes and low cumulative bed-nights; a cyclical cluster (3% of families and 11% of singles) who experienced multiple episodes, but moderate cumulative stays; and a long-term cluster (27% of families and 23% of singles) who experienced one to three prolonged stays with high number of total bed-nights.

In the paper we focus on the dynamics of exiting EA during the study period. A relatively undeveloped area of homelessness research, we firstly analyse the patterns and demographic characteristics of the 76% of families and 38% of single adults that exited to social housing tenancies or supports; second, we analyse the patterns and demographic characteristics of the 17% of families and 46% of single adults who exited EA without securing housing but did not return to EA during the study period. In conclusion, we highlight the enablers and barriers to exiting EA in the Dublin region, providing lessons for other cities and jurisdictions. 

 Eoin O'Sullivan, IE is Professor in Social Policy in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of the European Observatory on Homelessness since 1992, and editor of the European Journal of Homelessness since 2009. Recent collaborative and co-edited books include Ending Homelessness? The Contrasting Experiences of Denmark, Finland, and Ireland (2020), Reimagining Homelessness (2020), Handbook of Homelessness Research (2025) and Understanding Homelessness in Ireland Since Independence: Decades in the Making (2026).

Pathie Maphosa is the Head of Research at the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, where she leads work focused on analysing data on homelessness and service use across the region. Her research includes homelessness and housing needs assessments, as well as family homelessness in Dublin. She has co-authored reports on youth homelessness and, most recently, on patterns of emergency accommodation usage in the region.

Yogalakshmi Chandrasekar is a Research Officer at the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. Her work focuses on analysing homelessness service usage and trends across the Dublin region. She has contributed to the development of data visualisations for the DRHE website and supports the reporting of regional homelessness statistics, providing insights to the Department of Housing. She has recently co-authored a report on patterns of emergency accommodation usage in the Dublin region, 2017-2024.

Sarah Parker and Bernie O’Donoghue Hynes, IE: Homelessness Service-Use Trajectories in Ireland: A National and Sub-National Typology

Background: Over the past three decades, homelessness research has increasingly examined the temporal dynamics of shelter utilisation using large-scale, longitudinal administrative data. Prior work in Ireland and internationally shows that the prevailing three-cluster model (short-term, recurrent, long-stay) exists, but little is known about how it varies across a country, whether specific regions dominate the national picture and what this means for planning intervention mix at scale.

Methods: Adopting a quantitative approach, this paper advances the established typology by applying multiple cluster solutions across regional and household dimensions in Ireland, generating parallel trajectory profiles for singles and families: (1) at national level; (2) within the Dublin region; and (3) outside the Dublin region. The dataset (N = 35,797; 25,436 singles and 10,361 families) comprises administrative records relating to all adults accessing State- funded emergency accommodation over a seven-year period (2017–2024). To validate the model, emergent groupings are examined by available demographic, household and service- use characteristics.

Analytic focus: Preliminary results indicate that while the cluster structures remain broadly consistent at national-level, comparisons between the Dublin region and non-Dublin distributions reveal meaningful variation. Further analysis examines how the distribution of short-term, recurrent and long-stay cluster membership varies across local authorities and whether household composition shapes trajectories, including to what extent these relationships differ by place. Together, these comparisons allow interrogation of whether national-level typologies mask important sub-national and household-specific heterogeneity.

Contribution: By distinguishing short-term, recurrent, and long-stay homelessness service trajectories at scale, this research supports a shift from uniform emergency responses toward differentiated, regionally responsive intervention planning. Moreover, it provides an evidence base for aligning prevention, rapid-rehousing, tenancy sustainment and housing-led supports with observed patterns of need. By testing whether national patterns are shaped by Dublin-region dynamics, the analysis strengthens the interpretability of national reporting as well as the typology more broadly.

Dr Sarah Parker is a senior Research Manager at the Local Government Management Agency, Ireland, where she leads national research programmes supporting local authority decision-making across several policy areas, including homelessness. An Adjunct Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin, Sarah has also contributed to major national research on homelessness and housing vulnerability among care leavers, migrants, youth and families. Her work has been published widely in edited collections and international journals - including Housing Studies, International Journal on Homelessness and European Journal of Homelessness – and she is a Member of the Housing Agency Evaluation Committee and Focus Ireland Research Sub-Committee. 

Dr Bernie O’Donoghue Hynes has been Head of Research with the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) since 2018 and is responsible for the development of centralised national datasets across several policy areas, including homelessness. Prior to this she worked in the Dublin Homeless Region Executive (DRHE) as Head of Research and was involved in the development of the first set of homeless statistics for the State. She has been involved in the publication of several articles relating to patterns of emergency accommodation use, the most recent collaborative publication being Understanding the emergency accommodation use patterns of homeless families published in Cities in 2024, as well as publications relating to mortality rates amongst the homeless population in the Dublin Region.

Portugal is currently facing a severe housing crisis, characterised by extreme rent-to-income ratios and persistently low levels of civic participation in housing governance (OECD, 2023; World Economic Forum, 2020). This paper presents findings from the Lisbon Invisible project, which examines homelessness and housing exclusion through a technopolitical lens, conceptualising digital technologies as tools of political agency, civic participation, and participatory governance. The theoretical framework draws on scholarship on technopolitics, digital citizenship, and participatory democracy, critically engaging with debates on the limits of institutional participation and the risks of symbolic or extractive engagement. Homelessness is approached not only as a condition of material deprivation but also as a form of political and institutional invisibility within housing policy regimes (Baptista, 2010). Methodologically, the research adopts a mixed-methods participatory design. It combines a critical review of academic literature with the analysis of national and international data sources to systematise fragmented evidence on homelessness and housing exclusion in Portugal. This is complemented by participatory fieldwork involving people experiencing homelessness, non-governmental organisations, and housing activists through co-creation workshops, collaborative mapping exercises, and participatory platform design, ensuring that no data, narrative, or intervention is produced without the active involvement of those directly affected (Charlton, 1998). Preliminary findings highlight persistent tensions between official representations of homelessness and lived experiences, particularly in relation to bureaucratic exclusion, institutional fatigue, and gendered vulnerabilities. These structural gaps in housing policy disproportionately affect marginalized groups, including immigrants and women survivors of violence experiencing housing precarity (OECD, 2024), as well as broader barriers in access to housing, healthcare, mobility, and social protection in urban contexts such as Lisbon. The study contributes critical reflections on how participatory and citizen-generated knowledge practices can enhance the visibility of homelessness and inform more inclusive approaches to housing governance, visibility, and spatial justice.

Ana Luísa de Souza Melo is a researcher at CRIA (Centre for Research in Anthropology) and PI of the FCT-funded project Lisbon Invisible. Her work focuses on technopolitics and digital activism in homelessness policies. 

Lara Silva Fagundes is a PhD candidate in Anthropology (ISCTE-IUL/NOVA FCSH) and a researcher at CRIA, specializing in collaborative methodologies and social inclusion. Both are early career researchers dedicated to research-action initiatives that employ digital platforms and civic hacking to promote the right to housing and spatial justice for structurally marginalized populations in Lisbon.

AI is rapidly being adopted across public services, yet there is limited evidence on the efficacy of these tools to improve outcomes, particularly for people at risk of homelessness. Our study, a collaboration between King's College London and the Centre for Homelessness Impact, funded by the UK government, aims to start filling that gap through a trial of ‘Housing Helper,’ a generative AI chatbot designed to deliver personalised housing advice. 

Housing Helper is hypothesised to reduce homelessness through two pathways: first, by providing accessible, 24/7 personalised advice, including a risk triage, resource signposting, and drafting personalised letters and documents in 55 languages; and second, by improving the quality and timeliness of engagement with council housing services, offering prevention before crises escalate. This Theory of Change has been co-developed with our implementation partner Southwark Council, and Change Please, developer of Housing Helper.

The trial uses a randomised encouragement design, where nearly 10,000 households identified as at risk of homelessness were randomly assigned either to receive encouragement to use the AI tool, or to receive a message signposting them to existing resources. The outcomes - whether a household becomes homeless - will be measured using administrative data one year after randomisation. The trial is accompanied by an implementation and process evaluation, which examines how and why the tool works (or does not), and an economic evaluation to assess cost-effectiveness. Findings will be triangulated to build a comprehensive picture of the AI tool’s impact.

We present interim findings, including early evidence on engagement, barriers to uptake, and how AI-specific features shape the user experience. We also reflect on methodological challenges specific to evaluating AI interventions, such as how underlying model changes can be incorporated into the theory of change and data collection, and how to navigate ethical concerns.

Luke Arundel is Evidence and Data Lead at the Centre for Homelessness Impact, where he oversees multiple evaluations and leads the organisation’s work on AI. 

Julia Ellingwood is a Research Fellow and a PhD student at the Policy Institute, King’s College London, where she conducts trials primarily in education and homelessness.

This presentation will present findings from interviews with 17 Older People Experiencing homelessness OPEH in Edinburgh and 16 service providers. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, following Braun and Clarke’s six-phase approach.

Three themes emerged from reflexive thematic analysis: mobile phone use, internet engagement and online activities, factors influencing the digital life of OPEH, and current strategies for gathering essential support information. OPEH showed high mobile phone ownership, mainly smartphones, but limited access to laptops, tablets, and stable internet. Engagement included calls, texts, online banking, social media, and entertainment. Device loss, theft, and turnover were common, and many relied on charity-led device programmes that faced funding challenges.

Digital exclusion emerged as a major theme, with providers highlighting that essential pathways out of homelessness, including housing applications, benefits, and employment, are now predominantly online. Despite these challenges, participants highlighted libraries as vital, safe, free, and supportive spaces with internet access, computers, and social opportunities, though some faced stigma there. OPEH participants primarily accessed support information through experiential knowledge and peer-to-peer networks, supplemented by printed leaflets and guidance from support workers. Most preferred in- person communication, citing trust, familiarity, and ease of understanding. A small group actively disengaged from digital life by choice, emphasising the need to maintain non-digital pathways to support. Service providers stress that digital services must complement, rather than replace, relational support.

These findings suggest that digital inclusion policies for OPEH must address the wider structural and situational barriers that shape digital engagement. Given the insecurity associated with street-based living, interventions should also consider practical measures to support device retention. Finally, policies must recognise that some individuals will choose not to engage digitally; thus, offline routes to information and support must continue to operate alongside digital options to ensure services remain genuinely accessible.

Emily Adams (MPH) is currently completing her PhD on digital support for older people experiencing homelessness at the University of Edinburgh. She also works in emergency social care for individuals facing homelessness in the city. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Homelessness and Inclusion Health, working on an exploratory qualitative study on homelessness and pregnancy. 

After the political transition of 1989, homelessness became a major social and public health challenge across Eastern Europe. Over the years, it has become clear that healthcare systems, alongside social services, are essential in addressing homelessness. People often become homeless with existing health problems, such as psychiatric disorders, substance use, disabilities, and chronic illnesses, which can worsen during homelessness. Poor health limits their ability to maintain housing and employment and adds extra strain to healthcare systems.

Access to healthcare varies across countries due to different laws and systems, meaning homeless people may face different paths to care. This study examines healthcare provision for people experiencing homelessness, focusing on territorial (horizontal) and hierarchical (vertical) inequalities in access. The analysis is based on regional literature, legislation, and online sources, and is complemented by the qualitative part of the study, consisting of semi-structured interviews with experts from the countries examined.

Results show that access is affected by multiple factors: legal rules on homelessness and healthcare, lack of social insurance, criminalization and stigma, and the uneven spread of specialized services, mostly concentrated in cities. Homeless individuals tend to rely more on higher-level care, often bypassing primary and outpatient services, and frequently use emergency care because of systemic barriers. While healthcare systems are centralized, gaps remain at lower levels, especially in outpatient and inpatient specialist care.

Even though European Union co-funded programs and initiatives exist to support integrated care (for e.g. SOLACE-CEE), healthcare systems in the studied countries are not fully prepared to meet the complex needs of people experiencing homelessness. The findings highlight the need for integrated, trauma-informed care and more balanced access across regions. They also show national and regional patterns and the locations of specialized services.

Noémi Vajdovich is a third year doctoral student at Eötvös Loránd University, Doctoral School of Earth Sciences. Since September 2024, she has been working as a junior analyst at Városkutatás Kft. – Metropolitan Research Institute (MRI) in Budapest. Her doctoral research focuses on the territorial analysis of healthcare access and health status among people experiencing homelessness. While her previous master’s research focused on Hungary, she aims to extend her studies to a regional perspective covering Central and Eastern Europe.

While privacy is traditionally equated with institutionalized forms like the private home, the absence of such structures compels homeless individuals to develop alternative strategies to experience it. The master’s thesis examines how homeless people in Vienna construct and maintain privacy from an action-theoretical perspective. By integrating Beate Rössler’s tripartite concept of decisional, informational, and spatial privacy with the relational space theories of Löw and Lefebvre – who understand space as something to be claimed – the research explores privacy as an active social construction rather than a static state. The empirical study utilizes narrative interviews interpreted through fine-structure, system, and topic analyses.

The findings reveal that the construction of privacy depends on a dynamic interplay between place, time, and mobility. Private actions are distributed across the urban landscape and categorized into two types: those facilitated by institutional infrastructures, such as shelters, and those involving public spaces that are temporarily interpreted as private for specific activities. Because access to these locations is often fleeting and contingent on the presence of others, the ability to control one’s time becomes a critical resource. This temporal limitation necessitates mobility, allowing individuals to reach specific places at specific times. Furthermore, mobility emerges as a distinct form of privacy; by moving through the city, individuals can dissolve into the anonymity of the urban public sphere to avoid surveillance.

Successfully navigating these processes requires specialized knowledge of city rhythms and spatial availability, acquired through personal experience and social networks. While institutional facilities provide necessary infrastructure, they also impose a structuring effect and a degree of stigma that many individuals seek to circumvent. Ultimately, this study concludes that for those without a permanent residence, privacy is a continuous, fragile and time dependent mobile practice of negotiation within the urban environment. 

Lukas Pascher is a sociologist specializing in power and control within public spaces. His work focuses on the exclusion of marginalized groups and strategies of spatial appropriation. Since 2024 he has been working for Caritas Vienna as a project and policy manager, focusing on the conceptual development of Cartias’ low- and high-threshold homelessness assistance services. Additionally, he lectures at the University of Vienna on the topic’s homelessness and homeless assistance as well as urban control and exclusion mechanisms.

Homeless people are disproportionately exposed to the social determinants of health, while they are also affected by multi-level barriers to accessing healthcare services and to achieving wellbeing. This interdisciplinary paper presents the preliminary results of our study on the barriers to health, healthcare and wellbeing for homeless people in Dublin (Ireland). This study is developed in the context of the Research Ireland-funded project “Deprived Health”, a multi-case studies qualitative research combining philosophical analysis, empirical investigation and social commitment to identify and contribute to dismantling barriers to health in contexts of extreme socioeconomic deprivation and vulnerability, collaboratively with the people affected by them. It grounds on public health scholarships on the social determinants of health and on philosophical literature on health equity and health capabilities. 

The first part of our fieldwork in Dublin included eleven qualitative interviews aimed to explore the challenges homeless people face, the accessibility of the support provided to them, and the support they would further need. Research participants included people who have direct experience of the challenges under analysis (people who are homeless and organizations representatives supporting them) and people committed to mitigating them (relevant medical professionals and local administrative authorities). 

Our preliminary results evidenced the multi-level detrimental effects of services neglecting personal preferences and needs (eg: non-negotiable assignment of emergency accommodations; non-suitable opening times and settings for healthcare assistance). On the basis of that, we frame health empowerment in contexts of homelessness in terms of capabilities (understood as the real freedom people have to achieve what they value), and as relying on: (1) health literacy to avail of the healthcare and other support services in place; (2) structural commitment to provide support for neglected homeless people’s needs in full recognition of homeless people as capable agents. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of our analysis.

Ilaria Galasso is an SFI-IRC Pathway Fellow at University College Dublin, leading the research project "Deprived Health" to the conceptual understanding and the concrete pursuit of social and health equity in contexts of homelessness, migration and socioeconomic deprivation. She has a background in Ethical and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Science and Technology Studies. She is primarily interested in social and health equity (and the connections between the two), and on the tensions between individual and social responsibility in health and beyond.

Meaza Haddis Gebeyehu is a PhD student at UCD and part of the SFI–IRC Pathway project ‘Deprived Health’, which examines barriers to health and wellbeing in contexts of socioeconomic deprivation. Her research focuses on social and health equity at the intersection of gender, displacement, and humanitarian settings, with particular attention to health literacy as a relational and empowerment-oriented process. She has a background in law, and human rights advocacy and she is especially interested in participant-led, trauma-informed, and justice-oriented research approaches.

This study explores how Austria’s social and cultural context influences policies addressing female homelessness. I tried to pay special attention to the situation of refugee and migrant women, who often face compounded intersectional discrimination. This question combines factors such as gender-based violence, economic dependence, and migrant status, as well as structural barriers.

This paper adopts a qualitative research methodology. Through a combination of interviews, case studies, and policy analysis, this research seeks to capture both individual narratives. The base of the research is interviews with policy makers, social workers, and other stakeholders. It sheds light on the gaps in the system, showing which people are being left behind and how support is failing to reach them.

One of the findings is that women, especially migrant women, face compounding vulnerabilities that are not adequately addressed by mainstream housing policies. Legal residency requirements, rigid eligibility rules, and local bureaucratic criteria often exclude women from accessing both social housing and emergency shelters. For many without a permanent legal status, the result is a cycle of hidden homelessness. Domestic violence is frequently the trigger for homelessness among women, yet the policy response remains fragmented. Domestic violence services and homelessness services operate in parallel silos, rarely coordinating long-term solutions. The language barrier also

functions as a systemic obstacle. The lack of trauma-informed care is another critical concern.

Policies focus primarily on housing delivery and emergency response, with limited integration of mental health care tailored to trauma survivors. Moreover, the findings highlight deep inequalities in how services are funded, distributed, and accessed. Shelter and housing options are unequally distributed across districts, limiting client agency and creating geographic concentrations of marginalization. Women have little say in where they are housed, which can further disrupt their social ties, access to schools, or work opportunities.

Elena Fofanova is a poet, activist and researcher of homelessness. She worked as a social worker in a non-profit organisation “Nochlezka” in St. Petersburg, oldest NGO helping unhoused people in Russia. She holds a master degree in Human Rights from Central European University in Vienna and a bachelor degree in history from Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg.

Background

User participation is a central principle in Norwegian social housing policy, yet tensions remain between institutional frameworks and the experiences of people with substance use and/or mental health challenges. While housing stability is often defined as access to a place to live, service users describe it as a relational and ongoing process shaped by everyday interactions.

Aim

This study draws on an ongoing qualitative PhD project in Northern Norway exploring pathways between housing stability, quality of life, and social inclusion. It examines how experiential knowledge can support collective learning and service development through dialogical practice.

Theoretical framework

The study is grounded in a social constructivist perspective and combines narrative analysis with dialogical and relational approaches inspired by anticipation dialogues.

Methods

Data include interviews with six service users, three relatives, and focus groups with twenty-two municipal employees across three municipalities. Following narrative thematic analysis, a dialogical workshop brought together service users, relatives, professionals, and organizational representatives. Participants were invited to imagine improved future conditions for housing stability, quality of life, and social inclusion, and to identify enabling relational and structural factors.

Findings and implications

Housing stability emerged as relational and dynamic, shaped by safety, dignity, predictability, and belonging. Participants described fragmented services, unstable professional relationships, and stigma, revealing tensions between lived experience and institutional structures. Anticipation dialogues shifted attention from problems to shared possibilities, positioning participants as knowledge holders. The study suggests that combining narrative analysis with future dialogues can move user participation beyond consultation and contribute to more relational and inclusive social housing practices.

Anne Bergljot Gimmestad Fjelnseth is a social worker and PhD candidate at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. She has extensive experience from Norwegian municipal social services and has worked since 2014 as an academic advisor at the Norwegian Resource Center for Community Mental Health, focusing on homelessness and user participation. Her PhD project, Pathways of Participation through Housing Stability, Quality of Life, and Social Inclusion in a Northern Norwegian Context, explores how social housing services can support participation, well-being, and social inclusion.Main supervisor: Rita Sørly (Professor of Social Work, UiT) researches collaborative practice, user participation, and mental health; Co-supervisors:  Bengt Eirik  Karlsson (Professor Emeritus, USN) focuses on collaborative knowledge development and relational mental health practices;  Vår Mathisen (Associate Professor, UiT) studies user participation and collaborative research in mental health and substance use.

Theoretical Framing: The study examines the fiscal implications of employing individuals facing structural barriers to labor market participation. It builds on the methodology for estimating labor market exclusion costs by Domonkos and König and the government-perspective analytical framework of Connolly et al., both adapted to reflect the specific conditions of the target group, particularly their limited access to employment and higher dependence on social support.

Methods: The research applies a fiscal impact analysis comparing public finance outcomes under employment and unemployment scenarios for two representative households: a single individual and a parent with two children. The analysis assumes that, in the absence of employment, individuals would remain outside the labor market and continue receiving state social support. Based on a gross monthly wage of €800, the model quantifies four components using data from the Social Insurance Agency, legislation regulating material need benefits, the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family, and the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic for the years 2023 and 2024: (1) foregone revenues from direct taxes and social and health insurance contributions, (2) public expenditures on social assistance, (3) indirect tax revenues derived from household consumption, and (4) avoided costs of residential social services, which the target group often relies on due to insufficient resources for independent housing.

Findings: The results demonstrate significant annual public savings. Employing a single individual generates savings of €9,200, while employing a single parent with two children yields €9,700. When accounting for the transition to independent housing after approximately one year of stable employment, savings increase to €14,800 per individual and €26,400 per single-parent household. The composition of savings differs by household type: for individuals, the effect is primarily driven by tax revenues and contributions, whereas for families, reductions in social transfers play a larger role.

These findings support policy development and advocacy aimed at enhancing labor market integration of vulnerable groups. As broader social, health, and productivity effects are not included, the estimates represent a conservative lower bound of total benefits.

Elena Zagorová graduated with a Master’s degree in Business Informatics from the Technical University of Košice, specializing in data analysis. She has experience working with medical and social research data and has participated in research projects focused on homelessness, integrated health and social care, and unemployment. Her work has included data collection and research within the European homelessness count project and Needs Assessment regarding health of people experiencing homelessness.

Background: Homelessness is often approached as a static condition, overlooking the complex processes that preceded it. A deeper understanding of the antecedent diverse trajectories leading to homelessness remains a critical gap in mental health and nursing research.

Theoretical framework: Our study adopts a Grounded Theory approach following Juliet Corbin and Anselm Strauss, drawing on process-oriented perspectives, to examine action–interaction processes shaped by intervening conditions and leading to diverse consequences, while foregrounding subjective experiences and meaning-making.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative study using Grounded Theory methodology, including constant comparative analysis and open, axial, and selective coding. Data was collected between 2021 and 2026 through in-depth interviews with individuals experiencing homelessness and individuals who had exited homelessness. Participants were recruited through community and support services, ensuring variation in trajectories and experiences. The analysis aimed to generate a substantive theory explaining the processes underlying these lived experiences.

Findings: We will present one processual dimension, conceptualized as a downward spiral of cumulative vulnerability: antecedent processes, characterized by a downward spiral of increasing vulnerability, including early trauma, disruption of social bonds, and mental health deterioration. The erosion of social support networks and compromised emotional regulation play a central role in this trajectory, limiting individuals’ capacity to interrupt the spiral, reinforcing cycles of exclusion and marginalization.

Conclusions: Homelessness in the context of mental disorders should be understood as a dynamic and non-linear process. These findings highlight the need for integrated, continuous, and person-centered mental health interventions, sensitive to trauma and the instability of life trajectories.

As a PhD candidate in Nursing, Diana Cunha conducts research focused on homelessness and mental health, using Grounded Theory to explore lived experiences and care processes. Specialist in Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing, her work contributes to advancing person-centered, trauma-informed approaches in mental health nursing, with particular emphasis on socially vulnerable populations. She is also engaged in academic writing, qualitative research methodologies, and knowledge translation in mental health care contexts.

The Dublin Homeless Network (with membership  of 23 organisations),  led by NOVAS  and the School of Applied  Psychology   in University  College Cork have developed RISE: a  co-designed psychoeducation  programme  for individuals  accessing homeless services. The programme responds to growing recognition that experiences of both childhood and adult trauma are highly prevalent among people experiencing homelessness and are associated with adverse physical health, mental health and substance use.

Services increasingly recognise the role of trauma as a causal factor for negative life outcomes and thus the need for trauma informed practice (TIP). While it is now commonplace for staff to learn about TIP, training is rare among clients. Indeed, this is the first programme  of its kind for people who experience homelessness  and housing insecurity  in Ireland.

The theoretical framework underpinning RISE integrates Trauma-Informed  Practice (TIP) principles with psychoeducation theory.  Psychoeducation  is a recognised  effective community-based intervention,  operating on the premise  that access to health information  leads to more positive health outcomes.  The programme is informed by strengths-based and recovery-oriented approaches,   emphasising safety, trust, collaboration and self-efficacy.

Methodologically, the programme was developed through a participatory co-design process involving Technical Advisory Groups of frontline practitioners and individuals with lived experience of homelessness.  The pilot implementation is currently underway across two Dublin-based services. A mixed-methods evaluation is being employed,  including   pre- and post-programme outcome measures, alongside qualitative interviews and focus groups with participants and facilitators.

Emerging findings from the co-design phase indicate increased participant empowerment, improved self-advocacy, and enhanced interest in further education. It is anticipated that programme delivery will further demonstrate improvements in mental health literacy, reductions in shame, and increased help-seeking behaviours.

This presentation will outline the theoretical framework,  the co-design process and outcomes of the RISE programme.  We will report  on the outcomes  of the programme  delivery across the Dublin Homeless  Network.

This paper contributes to European discussions on trauma-informed systems change by demonstrating the value of embedding co-designed, client-focused psychoeducation within homelessness services, highlighting its potential to complement staff training and improve client outcomes.

Programme leads from NOVAS and School of Applied Psychology in UCC are: 

Dr Daniel O’Callaghan, BA, MA, PhD Applied Psychology. Postdoctoral Researcher, National Suicide Research Foundation. Occasional Lecturer & Head Tutor, School of Applied Psychology. 

Dr Sharon Lambert is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Applied Psychology in UCC. Sharon’s research interests revolve primarily around the impact of psychological trauma on development, its link with homelessness, substance dependence and mental health, and consequent considerations for service design and delivery. Sharon regularly publishes in peer-reviewed journal. She has recently been appointed as the President-elect for 2026 of The Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and was appointed to the Statutory parole Board by the Minster of Justice. 

Jennifer Doyle has 17 years’ experience supporting marginalised women and is NOVAS Senior Residential Services Manager, supporting the delivery of trauma-informed services. Jennifer is the current chair of NOVAS Trauma Informed Practice Steering Group. Jennifer holds qualifications, a BSc (Hons) in Applied Social Studies (Social Care) from Waterford Institute of Technology and a MA in Quality and Safety in Healthcare from the Royal Collage of Surgeon's Ireland. 

Dr. Una Burns is Head of Advocacy and Communications with NOVAS and Vice-Chair of the Dublin Homeless Network. She holds a BA in History and Politics, an MA in International Relations, and a PhD in Migration History. She has a strong professional focus on trauma informed practice, having established and chaired NOVAS’s first TIP steering group, and has hosted two national conferences on the subject. 

Austria offers a state-funded program that helps to prevent homelessness by covering rent arrears in order to avoid evictions. A majority of people affected by homelessness have a substance use disorder. Despite the higher percentage of people with an SUD, they are barely reached by the prevention program. The bachelor thesis examines which factors are decisive for accessing these homeless prevention centers.

The study is based on a qualitative field study conducted through a participant observation in one of these support centers for eviction prevention. In addition, narrative interviews of people with SUD were conducted. These participants had experienced homelessness. 

The participant observation has indicated that the support centers for eviction prevention are not facilitating tailored solutions to meet the needs of the target group, neither in terms of access conditions nor in requirements for receiving financial assistance. Financial aid is tied to conditions and criteria so that the individuals in question abandon their previous way of life and provide proof and tactics on how they want to approach this change.

The interviews have indicated that the subjects of the study have mostly lived in precarious housing situations without legal grounds, tenancy protection and do not experience legal evictions. Loss of housing occurs arbitrarily and at short notice. After becoming homeless, individuals often find temporary accommodation with others in similarly precarious housing circumstances. The study’s findings provide a comprehensive picture of the living conditions of people suffering from SUD with housing instabilities. They create their own resilience strategies within their peer networks. The study illustrates, through the implementation of a resilience model, how they maintain the ability and agency to organize their everyday life.

The theoretical framing is an observation of the current object-oriented approach of the research in Austria. Drawing on sociological theories of social work, the analysis shows that the effectiveness of the program to prevent evictions is limited, as individuals with SUD who are unable to adapt their way of life due to their condition do not receive effective eviction prevention.

Sabrina Steininger is a final-year bachelor student of Social Work at the USTP in Austria. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Vienna. She works in a homeless support center. Her interests lie in examining processes of help and support structures with a focus on listening and examining directly to those affected individuals. Her area of interest is presenting participant observation in social work research.

In winter, sleeping rough can become life-threatening, as people continue to suffer and even die from exposure. In response to this, since the early 2010s, there has been a continual uptick in the creation and distribution of shelter design objects intended to help homeless people sleep more safely on the street in freezing temperatures. Functioning as minimal humanitarian devices, they take the form of combinations of jackets and sleeping bags, insulated, tent-like constructions, capsules, or even tiny houses.

As the number of locally developed designs continues to increase and some designs are scaled up in both production and distribution, this raises the question of how this proliferation relates to preexisting services and the welfare state. Based on ethnographic research examining shelter design objects from concept through distribution to use, I argue that in high-income countries, shelter designs are part of a movement seeking to fill the widening gaps left by the withdrawal of welfare states. Far removed from programs of social reintegration and housing provision, these grassroots homeless services materialise a turn to minimalism and what Didier Fassin defined as “humanitarian reason” - the prioritisation of securing physical survival above all else.

I show that shelter designs emerge only as socio-material assemblages within relational practices, as they are embedded in often difficult negotiations and translational work among producers, state agencies, social service providers, social workers, and recipients. The designs’ minimalist ideal of ease of use and provision is often questioned as much as it is praised, and their universal applicability proves fragmented and difficult to maintain. In the permanent emergency of street homelessness in winter, such minimal support strikes an inevitably difficult balance, professionally and socio-politically, between acknowledging and caring for cases of extreme precarity while also providing merely the “least necessary”.

Alexander Meinert holds an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Humboldt University, Berlin. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography at the University of Bonn, Germany. He is interested in human-environment relations, science and technology studies, and questions of home-making and dwelling. His current research examines the relationship between the welfare state and grassroots humanitarianism through ethnographic research on the role of material aid and designed objects in shelter provision within emergency homeless services. 

Scotland has one of the highest rates of drug-related deaths in Europe. This is exacerbated for people experiencing homelessness who are at a significantly higher risk of overdose.  Harm reduction approaches integrated into homeless services have potential to mitigate harms and prevent overdose. Although there is strong evidence for the positive impact of harm reduction approaches there is limited evidence on using harm reduction approaches within homelessness services in the UK. Simon Community Scotland (SCS) provides accommodation for women experiencing homelessness in Glasgow. In response to a rise in overdoses in 2021, the Safer Spaces policy, a high tolerance, harm reduction approach, was introduced. 

Goals and methods 

We conducted a feasibility evaluation of the Safe Spaces approach. This included in-depth qualitative interviews with residents (20) and SCS staff (26), to understand the impact of the Safer Spaces approach, and how both the women and staff experience the approach.

Results

Our findings demonstrated a number of benefits of the Safer Spaces approach. Participants described a perceived reduction in the number of deaths and increased safety in the service.  Participants also described improved relationships between the staff and women and a reduction in stigma. There were mixed views on whether the safer spaces approach reduced participants’ levels of drug use and findings suggest a need for further research to consider which groups of residents may benefit more or less from the safer spaces approach.

Conclusions

Harm Reduction approaches in accommodation services have the potential to have substantial positive impacts for those experiencing homelessness and using substances. Our findings are a starting point for further robust evaluation of the impact of the safer spaces approach. They also highlight the importance of understanding how harm reduction approaches affect women’s experiences of homelessness services, particularly as some aspects of the approach remain controversial.

Hannah Piggott is a Research Fellow at the Policy Institute at King’s College London.   Her work focuses on evaluations of social policy, particularly in relation to homelessness. She currently leads a UKRI grant funded evaluation looking at a harm reduction approach to substance use in homelessness services in Glasgow.  She also leads two projects for the Centre for Homelessness Impact. One is looking at how local authorities work with people who apply for homelessness support but do not have a local connection, and the other is trialling the provision of unconditional cash transfers to those with experiences of homelessness.

This study explores how housing precarity shapes pathways to mother–child separation in the context of homelessness in both high-income (Canada) and low- to middle-income (Nigeria) contexts. Moving beyond treating housing loss as a single or isolated cause, the study adopts a critical feminist and intersectional framework to explore how sociopolitical forces, including poverty governance, gendered inequalities, and child welfare systems, structure mothers’ experiences of separation.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty women who have experienced both homelessness and child separation, the study compares experiences across Canada and Nigeria. Using a narrative and thematic approach supported by NVivo, the analysis highlights how factors such as gender, class, race, and education intersect with policy and institutional practices to produce different forms of vulnerability and marginalization across contexts.

The findings show that mother–child separation is rarely the result of individual parental failure. Instead, it is shaped by structural conditions, including housing instability, fragmented services, and forms of institutional surveillance. In Canada, interactions between housing insecurity and formal child protection systems often lead to child removals. In Nigeria, children often separate themselves from their mothers. Limited state support and economic hardship shift caregiving responsibilities to informal networks, which can also result in separation. Across both settings, dominant ideas of “good motherhood” and institutional responses tend to overlook women’s survival strategies, limit their participation in decision-making, and penalize them for circumstances shaped by systemic neglect.

The study found that housing precarity operates as a key pathway to family separation. Addressing this requires integrated, context-specific, trauma- and violence-informed, and family-centred policy reforms that prioritize family preservation and confront the structural conditions producing preventable separations.

Olayinka Ariba is a Ph.D. candidate in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (Health Promotion) at the University of Western Ontario. She holds a degree in Applied Public Health from the University of Central Lancashire (UK). Her research focuses on homelessness, family separation, and the experiences of women and children. She has contributed to major housing and homelessness projects in Ontario, including the Ontario Alliance to End Homelessness (OAEH) and supportive housing evaluations. Olayinka has received several awards, including the Transport Canada Flight 302 Legacy Award and the CIHR Travel Award, recognizing her leadership and research impact.

Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are profoundly reshaping social work practice, yet their implications for frontline professionals working with people experiencing homelessness remain underexplored (Goldkind, 2021; Garkisch & Goldkind, 2024). This paper examines how digital technologies and emerging AI applications function simultaneously as burdening and relieving factors in everyday social work practice within homelessness services.

The study is theoretically framed by critical labour process theory, the Job Demands–Resources Model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), technostress research (Dragano & Lunau, 2020), and socio-technical perspectives on AI in social work (Goldkind, 2021; Garkisch & Goldkind, 2024). Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation and AI intersect with emotional labour, professional ethics, accessibility, and structural inequalities in homelessness services. AI is conceptualized not as a neutral technology, but as a socially embedded socio-technical artifact shaped by institutional power relations, professional norms, and political-economic conditions (Goldkind, 2021).

Empirically, the paper draws on 50 ero-epic conversations (Girtler, 2009) with social workers employed in homelessness services and related fields in Germany. The conversations focused on everyday work situations, experiences with digital and AI-supported tools (e.g. documentation systems, generative AI applications, case management software, digital communication, automated text generation), and perceived impacts on well-being, professional identity, professional judgement, and service quality. Data were analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021), enabling an interpretive exploration of subjective meaning-making and ambivalences surrounding digital transformation and AI integration.

Findings reveal a persistent ambivalence toward digitalisation and AI. On the one hand, participants describe increased workload, technostress, emotional exhaustion, data protection uncertainties, role conflicts, and moral stress, particularly where administrative demands and AI-supported efficiency expectations conflict with relational and rights-based social work practice (Dragano & Lunau, 2020; Staub-Bernasconi, 2018). Participants also reported problematic and sometimes unauthorized uses of generative AI in documentation processes, including serious concerns regarding privacy, surveillance, and the handling of sensitive client data. These findings resonate with current debates on AI governance, accountability, and ethical risks in social work (Garkisch & Goldkind, 2024).

On the other hand, digital and AI-supported tools can provide moments of relief through improved coordination, accessibility, flexible communication, automated documentation support, and barrier-reduced participation, particularly in crisis situations and inter-agency collaboration. From a disability studies and neurodiversity perspective, AI-assisted accessibility tools such as captioning, speech-to-text systems, and adaptive communication formats may also reduce exclusion and cognitive strain when designed inclusively.

The findings suggest that whether digitalisation and AI are experienced as resources or burdens depends less on the technologies themselves than on organisational implementation, participatory governance, ethical safeguards, accessibility standards, training opportunities, and professionals’ scope for reflexive judgement (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).

The paper concludes by discussing implications for sustainable working conditions in homelessness services and argues for a participatory, ethically grounded, and inclusive approach to AI-supported social work. Rather than merely adapting to technological change, social work should actively shape the development of digital and AI systems in ways that strengthen human rights, social justice, accessibility, and professional autonomy (Staub-Bernasconi, 2018; Goldkind, 2021).

Nadine van der Meulen is a doctoral researcher at the PZSGT at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg (Bavaria) and a scholarship holder of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. She is Deputy Chair of the Europe-Union in the Aachen district association, a member of the Haaren District Council of the City of Aachen, and spokesperson for the State Working Group on Self-Determined Disability Policy in North Rhine-Westphalia. Her research focuses on inclusive digital transformation, ethics and AI, Disability Studies, as well as streetwork, Housing First, and homelessness.

Nearly 30% of people experiencing homelessness in Amsterdam are women, yet support systems remain largely designed around male pathways into homelessness. As a result, women continue to be structurally overlooked within social work. This figure, highlighted through the ETHOS framework, marks a critical tipping point: it forces us to reconsider who our systems are actually built for.

Last year, I conducted qualitative research with ten economically homeless women in Amsterdam. Women considered self-sufficient, yet without stable housing. Through in-depth interviews, I explored their pathways into homelessness, their daily realities, and their interactions with welfare organisations. A clear pattern emerged: women often navigate homelessness differently. They avoid traditional shelters and instead rely on informal networks to maintain safety and dignity. While these strategies may provide temporary protection, they also make women less visible in statistics and support systems.

A year later, follow-up conversations reveal that these patterns persist. Experiences of invisibility, avoidance of shelters, and a mismatch with existing services continue to shape women’s trajectories. When I talked about expanding places for homeless women and the creation of women’s shelters, the conversation often led to a discussion that women are more difficult to handle. It raises an urgent question: if women repeatedly do not fit the system, is the problem really with women? What if the perceived ‘difficulty’ reflects a mismatch between women’s needs and existing approaches?

This conference contribution invites a shift in perspective. Rather than asking why women are “hard to reach” or “difficult”, we must ask whether our systems are failing to meet their needs. Participants will be challenged to critically reflect and to explore how we can  change the approach of women homelessness in social work. 

Evelien Kamminga is a social worker in Amsterdam, supporting people experiencing economic homelessness. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam). Her work and research focus on economically homeless women in Amsterdam, highlighting resilience, social exclusion, and gender-responsive support systems. With a background in the social housing sector, she combines frontline experience with academic research to promote meaningful change. Evelien is committed to amplifying the voices of women experiencing homelessness and advancing more inclusive approaches within social work and homelessness services.

The absence of documentation constitutes a form of invisible exclusion, limiting access to social rights and essential services. Among people experiencing homelessness, daily instability often leads to the loss or theft of identification documents. This situation is further aggravated by bureaucratic requirements, such as proof of a fixed address, which reinforces social exclusion. Addressing this phenomenon requires low-threshold, person-centered responses that promote access to identification while reducing systemic barriers.

This study aimed to characterize social work intervention in supporting access to documentation for people experiencing homelessness in a harm reduction community center, during 2025. It is grounded in a human rights and harm reduction framework, emphasizing the relationship between social exclusion, vulnerability, and access to citizenship.

A quantitative approach was used, involving the analysis of administrative data from 315 service users receiving social support, of whom 190 were experiencing homelessness. Among these, 95 individuals sought assistance specifically related to documentation: 74% were Portuguese citizens, 20% were from third countries (mainly Brazil and South Asia), and 6% were from other European Union countries. The analysis also examined the processes undertaken by the social worker, including institutional mediation, coordination with external entities, support in gathering required documents, appointment scheduling, and individualized follow-up.

Of the 95 documentation-related cases, 77 resulted in referrals for the issuance or renewal of citizen cards, mostly involving men (n=52), followed by women (n=21), with 4 cases of undefined gender. Additionally, 10 referrals were made for passport requests, predominantly involving men (n=9), alongside 2 cases without defined gender. The remaining cases involved coordination with external entities, including document collection and service scheduling.

Social workers play a central role in mediating between users and institutions through coordination, individualized support, and facilitation of administrative procedures. While this intervention helps reduce barriers, significant structural obstacles persist, particularly for foreign citizens, compromising timely access to identification and fundamental rights and social inclusion.

Patricia Gomes is a harm reduction worker with a degree in Social Work and is currently pursuing a Master´s degree in Health Promotion. She works in a low-threshold community center and a drug consumption room in Portugal, supporting people who use drugs and people experiencing social and health vulnerabilities through harm reduction approaches focused on health, dignity, and social inclusion.

Co-authors: Mariana Bárbara; Rafael Machado; Clarissa Ferreira

Mariana Barbara is a social worker and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Social Policy. She has a strong interest and commitment to issues related to people experiencing homelessness and people who use drugs, focusing on the promotion of social inclusion and human rights. 

This research explores women’s empowerment strategies within the context of long-term homelessness, focusing on the Housing First programme “É UMA CASA, Lisbon Housing First”, developed by Associação CRESCER. Against the backdrop of Europe’s deepening housing crisis, the study highlights how women experiencing homelessness face genderspecific and intersecting vulnerabilities, including a high exposure to violence, stigma, and structural barriers to autonomy. Beyond access to shelter, empowerment processes are essential for women to rebuild stability and regain agency over their own lives. This research therefore examines how empowerment is fostered both through women’s everyday strategies of resilience and through institutional practices within Housing First interventions, which provide access to individual housing followed by interdisciplinary support. Theoretically, the research is grounded in feminist critiques of positivist knowledge production and draws on feminist institutional ethnography, taking women’s lived experiences as the entry point for analysing institutional structures, professional practices, and policy frameworks shaping homelessness responses. Methodologically, the project adopts a participatory qualitative approach combining ongoing daily interactions with semi-structured interviews and planned focus groups involving both women beneficiaries and Social Work professionals. This dual perspective allows for a deeper understanding of gender-sensitive practices and institutional dynamics. Emerging findings are expected to highlight key empowerment mechanisms within Housing First, particularly how safety, choice, and trusting professional relationships can foster autonomy and long-term reintegration. The study also anticipates identifying persistent gendered barriers, including trauma-related experiences and limited access to specialised support services. The final outcomes will offer practice-based recommendations to strengthen gender-responsive Housing First interventions, alongside policy proposals aimed at advancing more inclusive and equitable housing strategies across Europe.

Karoline Kleber is a Master’s student in Social Work and Sustainability at the University of Lisbon and has been admitted to the PhD programme in Transitions to Sustainability at ISCTE. They previously completed a research internship at Associação CRESCER within the Housing First programme “É UMA CASA, Lisbon Housing First”, where their work focused on gender-sensitive approaches to homelessness, with particular attention to women’s empowerment. With an academic background in Gender Studies and Romance Philology, Karoline combines qualitative feminist research with a strong commitment to human rights and sustainable social policy. They are also experienced in multilingual communication, writing, and knowledge translation for diverse audiences.

Supervisor: Maria Irene Carvalho is an Associate Professor at the University of Lisbon’s Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP). She teaches in the BA in Social Work, the Master’s programme in Social Work and Sustainability, and the PhD programme in Social Policy. She is an integrated researcher at CAPP – Centre for Administration and Public Policies, within the Welfare Systems and Social Intervention Research Group, with a particular focus on Social Work in institutional and community contexts.

Gender-based violence punctuates the lives of women experiencing homelessness (Loison; 2023): both because these women may be particularly vulnerable to it during their period of housing exclusion, and because it can act as a triggering factor that partly explains their situation. However, whilst the issue appears to be an integral part of these women’s experiences, it remains largely overlooked in the support provided by social workers (Loison-Leruste, Braud; 2022) 

Based on field research conducted within a housing charity, this research project will focus specifically on the perceptions and practices of social workers regarding the violence experienced by homeless women in their care. Initial analyses highlight a lack of response from organisations and an ambivalent stance on the part of professionals regarding this issue. In reality, extreme physical violence is generally the only tipping point that prompts social workers to focus their support for the person concerned on issues of gender-based violence.  The aim of this paper is to propose an initial categorisation of social workers by distinguishing three types of strategies to the issue raised: the strategy of rejection, the strategy of integration and the strategy of avoidance. Thus, this article will attempt an initial reflection on the reasons why homeless women are not considered to be at risk of gender-based violence. 

Soizic Paillou is a third-year doctoral student at the Emmaüs Solidarité association and affiliated with the Printemps Laboratory (Professions, Institutions, and Temporalities). Her thesis focuses on social work and the consideration of experiences of violence among homeless women. Under the supervision of Marie Loison-Leruste, she is particularly interested in social work, gender issues, and homelessness among women.

This study examines the landscape of social services for homeless adults in Bucharest, Romania, with a particular focus on life trajectories and structural barriers to service access. The research is theoretically grounded in life course theory and sociological perspectives that highlight the cumulative influence of early-life adversity and experiences of institutionalisation on the emergence of homelessness. The study adopts a qualitative research design. Data collection consists of life story interviews with homeless adults, aimed at capturing biographical pathways into homelessness, as well as semi-structured interviews with professionals working in public and private social service organisations. The research is at an advanced stage of data collection. Interviews with homeless adults are close to completion, while data collection with social service professionals is currently ongoing. Life story interviews provide insight into individual trajectories and critical life events, while interviews with specialists explore institutional practices and perceived challenges in service provision. This paper presents findings from an ongoing qualitative doctoral research project. 

Preliminary findings indicate that most participants have experienced multiple forms of adversity throughout their lives, with childhood emerging as a particularly significant period. Many respondents reported short and unstable family experiences, followed by placements in various public and private residential care institutions, which contributed to long-term vulnerability and social exclusion. From the perspective of specialists, the main barriers are not strictly related to the lack of shelter, but rather to health problems and the absence of identification documents, which severely limit access to social services and welfare benefits. These preliminary findings point to a complex interaction between biographical trajectories and structural constraints in shaping homeless adults’ engagement with the social service system. By bringing together the perspectives of people with lived experience and service providers, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of homelessness as a multidimensional social phenomenon and highlights the need for integrated and accessible social service responses.

Bianca-Daniela Parepeanu is a social worker and PhD candidate in the Doctoral School of Sociology, Social Work specialization, at the University of Bucharest. Her  research focuses on homelessness and social service accessibility for adults in urban contexts. She is particularly interested in the dynamics of exclusion and aims to develop a digital tool or practical guide to social services that is easily navigable for homeless people.

Homeless shelters are designed to provide temporary refuge, support and safety to people experiencing homelessness (PEH). However, despite policy efforts, they are often perceived as unsafe environments and tend to exhibit high rates of substance use among residents. Yet, there remains a lack of research examining the interplay between substance use, social interactions, and shelter environments. This study explores shelters as spaces of care through the lens of the relational, material, and spatial dimensions of care. Drawing on these dimensions, I argue that safety emerges from their dynamic interaction rather than from any single factor alone.

This is a mixed-methods comparative study across Manchester (UK), Athens (Greece), and Santiago (Chile), that explores the nexus between shelter environments and substance use, focusing on the role of social interactions within shelter spaces. This research focuses on heterogeneity within shelters and its effects, as well as the role of staff behaviour in either fostering a sense of safety or, conversely, contributing to increased substance use. It also examines social relations within shelters, including peer dynamics among residents and interactions between residents and staff. 

This paper introduces the Protective Withdrawal Paradox, a self-reinforcing cycle in which homeless shelter residents (HSRs) move from perceived unsafety to social withdrawal, which in turn leads to heightened substance use. I demonstrate how safety concerns shape social interactions within shelters and, in turn, influence HSRs’ wellbeing. Additionally, the findings highlight the crucial role of well-trained, caring and compassionate staff members in either fostering a sense of trust, care, and safety or, alternatively, exacerbating feelings of marginalization and isolation that may reinforce the misuse of substances as a coping mechanism. Finally, this paper underscores that establishing safe environments within shelter settings is crucial for supporting HSRs to manage substance use, and work towards developing more secure housing and reintegration plans.

Sotiria Kyriakidou is a researcher and PhD candidate in Human Geography, at the University of Manchester. Her research broadly focuses on homelessness, temporary accommodation, substance use, stigma, poverty alleviation, and harm reduction drug policies. She holds an MA in addictions, and her current research explores homeless shelters, social context and its effects on substance use. She has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at international conferences, and coordinated events and workshops on homelessness. Sotiria is a social worker with nearly a decade of international frontline experience in poverty and homelessness, and she is passionate about promoting social inclusion and sustainability.

Numbers of women experiencing homelessness are rising in England and across Europe. While women’s care and health inequalities and the prevalence of violence and abuse in their homelessness trajectories have been discussed, little is known about the processes and intersectional dynamics that shape help-seeking, potentially prolonging women’s experiences of homelessness. 

To fill this gap, I will present findings from a recently finished two year-long study using ethnographic methods involving observations across statutory and voluntary services in a city in England, repeat semi structured interviews with 40 women facing homelessness and multiple needs (21 follow-up interviews), including experiences of sex work, criminal justice, mental ill-health and substance use, 14 practitioners, and participatory discussion groups with participants. 

Drawing on McNay’s feminist revisions of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence (1999) and Dixon-Wood et al.'s (2005) candidacy framework, it interrogates the ways in which service pathways may or may not account for gendered and intersectional needs, investigating how gendered vulnerability, need, and resilience are defined, negotiated, and acted on, influencing women’s ability to shape support trajectories.

The findings highlight how processes of physical, symbolic, and gender-based violence and the normalisation of these experiences compromised women’s capacity to agency and help-seeking, sometimes trapping them further in precarious and exploitative situations. This process can lead to further alienation (and invisibility) from formal support options, cycles of repeat homelessness, and resilience becoming increasingly depleted. Practice and policy discourses focusing on ‘resilience’ and empowerment can contribute to this process by placing the responsibility for processing adversity back onto their client. This risks driving women further toward precarious coping mechanisms. Identifying gaps and providing opportunities for more gender-responsive support strategies, the presentation will also discuss the practical value for policymakers and service providers in developing more inclusive and gender-sensitive interventions and pathways out of homelessness.

Carolin Hess is a research fellow in Social Policy at the Department of Social Work, Care, and Community at Nottingham Trent University and a doctoral researcher at the Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King's College London. Her research supports the evaluation of the government-led Changing Futures programme in Nottingham. The programme delivers frontline and strategic system-change work for single adults facing homelessness and multiple disadvantages. Her PhD, which has been awarded Doctoral funding from the NIHR School for Social Care Research, investigates access to and support for women experiencing homelessness and multiple exclusion.