With 100 million homeless people and billions living in substandard conditions around the world, the housing crisis is now at the forefront of global discussions at the G20. The debate "Production and management of data on the homeless population" received contributions from Brasil, the United States, France, and Canada, emphasizing the urgency of finding solutions to the situation.
Approximately 1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing conditions, lacking access to basic sanitation services, and struggling to afford their own homes. Each year, approximately 2 million people are forced to leave their residences. By 2030, 3 billion people -roughly 40% of the global population- will require adequate housing. It is estimated that 100 million people around the world are homeless.
The data comes from UN-Habitat (the United Nations Human Settlements Program) and reveals a dramatic scenario that has piqued the interest of G20 members. The increase in homelessness rates in both developed and developing economies reveals how the multiple global security, political, economic, ecological, and health crises have exacerbated the crisis of homeless people in temporary shelters around the globe.
"Most countries around the world are in a state of poly-crisis. A housing crisis combined with climate change has a significant impact on the homeless population. It is a manifestation of the poly-crisis, but most countries have the means to solve it. Although reliable global statistics are lacking, homelessness is a global issue in all regions of the world," said Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing.
"Most countries around the world are in a state of poly-crisis. A housing crisis combined with climate change has a significant impact on the homeless population. It is a manifestation of the poly-crisis, but most countries have the means to solve it. Although reliable global statistics are lacking, homelessness is a global issue in all regions of the world," said Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing.
According to Rajagopal, homelessness is a serious violation of human rights that extends beyond the lack of adequate housing to include a lack of access to water, sanitation, education, privacy, and the concept of living with dignity, particularly for children and the elderly; people from ethnic-racial minorities, such as Indigenous people; and other socially vulnerable groups.
"Serious concerns about racism and other forms of structural discrimination must be identified and addressed. The failure of public authorities to prevent and address the problem is a failure of the state to uphold the most basic elements of the right to adequate housing, as well as other fundamental human rights that everyone should have without discrimination," the rapporteur stated.
Drawing attention to the growing number of homeless people and their impact on achieving global development goals, G20 Brasil organized the debate "Production and management of data on the homeless population," which brought together experts and government representatives to discuss context-specific solutions based on the realities of member countries. The Brazilian Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship (MDHC) coordinated the event, which marks the first time the topic is prioritized by the forum.
What constitutes adequate housing?
Rayne Ferretti, UN-Habitat's official in Brasil, explains that the concept of adequate housing includes criteria such as the ability to purchase a home, the availability of basic services, materials, and infrastructure, affordability, and cultural appropriateness. "It is much more than housing, but a requirement, a precondition for this person to have other human rights such as the right to participate in the economy, the right to the city, the right to health," she explained.
Ferretti also emphasizes the importance of considering the various definitions of homeless people, including those who sleep on public streets as well as those that indicate the need for permanent or temporary housing or unwanted but necessary sharing in this space. Whatever the interpretation, she emphasizes that it is a situation frequently linked to poverty and rising inequality.
"Lack of access to adequate housing, gender-based and domestic violence, substance abuse, discrimination, lack of decent employment, high energy costs, health care, rampant real estate speculation, a market with very strong power, limited access to quality education, and deficiencies in the mental health system and social protection systems," Ferretti listed as scenarios that lead people to lose their homes.
A census of the street population
Marta Antunes, coordinator of the working group on Traditional Peoples and Communities at IBGE (the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), highlighted the efforts to develop a methodology for a census of Brasil's homeless population. She emphasized that the Institute is collaborating with various organizations to address methodological and conceptual differences, which pose challenges in developing a national estimate for this group.
Antunes also pointed out that the IBGE has presented the methodological pillars for collecting information on homeless people in the country, which include adapting the cartography, developing specific questionnaires, and differentiating the operational structure. She emphasized the importance of partnerships between the statistics agency, city halls, and local governments, which are fundamental for carrying out the census.
Statistical effort
Jeff Randall, Housing Needs Project Manager at Statistics Canada, the G20 member country's statistics authority, presented public policies being implemented in the country that bring together federal entities and local communities to improve the situation of people at risk of homelessness and guarantee their rights.
One example is a program that provides funding to urban, Indigenous, rural, and remote communities to help them access local homeless services, which has resulted in a 50% reduction in the number of people who have been homeless for a year or more. Randall also emphasizes the importance of collecting specific statistical data and ensuring a high response rate to questionnaires in order to identify these populations and fund state actions to provide specific services.
Eliminating inequality
Jeff Oliver, from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), the US government body responsible for the agenda, recognizes that the situation in the country is "life and death". He revealed that "Tens of thousands of people die every year because of the dangerous conditions of homelessness. And the life expectancy of homeless people is around 20 years lower than that of housed populations".
"Black Americans represent about 13% of the total population, but 37% of the homeless population. American Indians and Alaska Natives are even more disproportionately represented, and Latino homelessness is on a very large scale. Other populations are also disproportionately affected by homelessness, notably on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability," stated Oliver.
The solution found by the country, said Oliver, is a multi-year strategy to prevent homelessness from occurring and to solve the problem quickly if it does. The plan includes six stages: eliminating racial inequalities, focusing on the needs of the LGBTQIAP+ population, which is over-represented among homeless people; producing data to support public policies; and fostering collaboration among governments, third sector organizations, and the business market.
Inclusion to understand realities
Thomas Lellouch, head of the Great Poverty Statistics Project at France's Insee (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies), emphasized the importance of accurate data to understand and address the problem of homelessness. He pointed out that a significant part of this population remains under-represented in French statistics due to the challenges of collecting information due to precarious housing conditions.
Lellouch noted that traditional household surveys still exclude people experiencing homelessness, resulting in a gap in understanding the experiences and needs of this group. Faced with this challenge, France prepared a database of social organizations that take in homeless people when they suffer violence or have their rights violated, in order to build a sample and put together a map of the situation in the country.
"The big problem is that there isn't a database of homeless people, so you cannot draw a representative sample of the homeless people you are going to interview in order to be representative to allow you to obtain data to describe the population," explained Lellouch.
