Homelessness
Homelessness is measured very differently from country to country, so headline numbers rarely compare cleanly. In 2023 reported rates ranged from over 40 per 10,000 people in England to under 1 in Japan and South Korea, while the UN estimates roughly 150 million people are homeless worldwide and around 1.6 billion live in inadequate housing.
Key Homelessness Insights
Rates vary enormously
Reported homelessness ranges from about 43 per 10,000 people in England and 30.7 in France down to roughly 1.6 in South Korea and 0.2 in Japan — largely because countries define and count homelessness differently.
Rising in many countries
Homelessness has climbed in much of the OECD. England's reported rate nearly doubled over 13 years, France's counted homeless population more than doubled (about 141,500 in 2010 to 333,000 in 2022), and US point-in-time counts hit a record in 2024.
Families and children affected
Many of those counted are in families. US homelessness among people in families with children jumped 39% between 2023 and 2024, and in England about 35% of households owed help included a dependent child.
A vast global housing gap
Beyond the ~150 million people UN-Habitat counts as homeless, roughly 1.6 billion — more than one in five people — live in inadequate, crowded or unsafe housing.
Reported homelessness rate by country
People reported as experiencing homelessness per 10,000 population, point-in-time counts for 2022–2024 (or latest available). Definitions differ between countries, so these figures are not strictly comparable.
Key Finding: England (~43) and France (~30.7 per 10,000) report far higher rates than Japan and South Korea (under 2), partly reflecting broader counting definitions.
Homelessness trend in selected countries
Reported homeless people per 10,000 population over time. England, Ireland and the US trend upward while Finland has steadily fallen.
Key Finding: Finland's rate roughly halved from about 14.7 to 6.1 per 10,000 between 2010 and 2023, bucking the rising trend seen in England and Ireland.
Point-in-time vs flow counts
Some countries report a single-night snapshot (point-in-time) while others count everyone who experienced homelessness over a year (flow). The two methods are not comparable.
Key Finding: A higher flow figure (e.g. Latvia ~32 per 10,000) need not mean more homelessness than a point-in-time count — it counts a different thing over a longer window.
United States: a record single-night count
Number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in the US, from HUD's point-in-time count. The 2024 total was the highest since records began in 2007.
Key Finding: US point-in-time homelessness rose about 18% in a single year to 771,480 people in January 2024 — a record high.
The global scale of housing need
UN-Habitat estimates of homelessness and inadequate housing worldwide, shown on a log scale alongside the roughly 2 million counted in OECD official statistics.
Key Finding: The ~150 million people the UN estimates are homeless, and ~1.6 billion in inadequate housing, dwarf the ~2 million captured in OECD government counts.
Understanding Homelessness Data
What counts as homelessness (ETHOS)
Most European data follow the ETHOS Light typology, which groups living situations into categories such as rooflessness (sleeping rough), houselessness (emergency or temporary accommodation and shelters), and people insecurely housed — for example temporarily staying with family or friends (“sofa surfing”). Countries that adopt a broad definition, like Australia and New Zealand, report much higher numbers than those using a narrow one, such as Chile, Portugal or Japan.
Point-in-time versus flow counts
Figures come from two fundamentally different methods. A point-in-time count is a single-night snapshot of how many people are homeless on a given date (used by, for example, the United States and France). A flow count tallies everyone who experienced homelessness over a whole year (used by, for example, Austria and Latvia). Because they measure different things, a flow figure will usually be larger than a point-in-time figure even if the underlying situation is similar.
Why cross-country comparison is unreliable
Differences in definitions, counting methods, reference years and whether children, migrants or those in institutions are included mean that ranking countries directly is misleading. Two countries with the same rate on paper may be measuring very different populations. The figures here are best read as each country's own reported scale rather than a like-for-like league table.
Undercounting and caveats
Official statistics almost always undercount homelessness. Hidden forms — people doubled up with others, in vehicles, or temporarily housed — are hard to capture, and the most marginalised are easily missed in a single-night count. Global figures (the UN-Habitat estimates of ~150 million homeless and ~1.6 billion inadequately housed) are broad approximations drawn from patchy national data, and more recent UN summit estimates run substantially higher still.