The number of homeless people living in the Netherlands was estimated at approximately 30,600 on January 1. That is an increase of more than 15 percent compared to a year earlier, when the figure was still estimated at 26,600. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reported this on Tuesday.
In particular, the number of homeless people of European origin increased last year, from 5 to 8 percent of the total. Within that group, the number of women and young people also increased. “This group may also include labor migrants, but it is not possible to map this,” according to Statistics Netherlands. Lead sociologist Tanja Traag explains that there is no information available about the motive for people who change countries within the Schengen zone. “We only have such detailed information about a limited number of homeless people that we can link such data to it,” says Traag. Such information is lacking for the majority of homeless people.
The increase in the number of homeless people of European origin was also the only change in the composition of the homeless population. For the rest it remained largely the same. More than 80 percent are men, 20 percent between the ages of 18 and 27, 61 percent between the ages of 27 and 50 and 19 percent between the ages of 50 and 65.
No statistics are available for 2019 because, according to Statistics Netherlands, one of the sources for this is missing. “That year the probation service switched to a new system, which means that the data for that year is missing,” says Traag. The CBS study focuses on adult homeless people who are included in the population register of a Dutch municipality. In recent years this has been around 30 percent of the total. The agency makes an estimate of homeless people who are not included in these registrations.
Due to the increase, there are approximately the same number of homeless people as in 2021, the downward trend since then has been reversed. Statistics Netherlands started keeping these statistics in 2009. That year, 17,800 homeless people were counted, about 42 percent less than now. The highest number of homeless people was calculated in 2018: 39,900. About 36 percent of homeless people are registered in one of the four major cities, and 80 percent of the homeless there have a non-Dutch origin. For comparison: in the rest of the Netherlands this is 55 percent.
CBS understands the term as people “who sleep outside or in a car, in squats and holiday homes or people who visit emergency shelters.” Statistics Netherlands also regards people who stay with family and friends but do not have their own shelter as homeless. People staying in temporary shelters are counted as homeless if this stay is for a short period of time.
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