Talk:List of sovereign states by homeless population

I applaud whoever put this page together, but it is not trustworthy or accurate: the statistics have different sources, therefore different methodologies and are showing non-comparable results. Best example is the UK and England - wildly different measures, both cannot be right.  Wik idea  19:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Without the article stating what definition of homelessness it uses, the results are useless. For example, the definition used by the US to put the figure at 554 000 would if applied to Sweden correspond to "acute homelessness", which covers 5900 people rather than the 34000 people stated in the entry for Sweden. If the definition of homelessness used by Swedish authorities was applied to the US, I have no idea how many would be considered homeless. Sajberhippien (talk) 13:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on List of countries by homeless population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160314073640/http://www.sos-ds.ba/doc/1363791285.pdf to http://www.sos-ds.ba/doc/1363791285.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160314045312/http://feantsaresearch.org/IMG/pdf/ot_et_al_review.pdf to http://feantsaresearch.org/IMG/pdf/ot_et_al_review.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20170110083731/http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/Guinea/Guinea_PRSP_2013.pdf to http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/Guinea/Guinea_PRSP_2013.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:58, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Homeless counts
Right now, this seems to be something of a mess. We don't seem to be doing apples to apples comparisons here. What exactly are we trying to count?

There's at least two possible numbers we can be counting here for "number of homeless people":


 * 1) Number of homeless people at any particular time - that is to say, the annual count of homeless people. In the US, the latest count put that at 554,000. This is what the US's number is in the chart now, as well as for France.
 * 2) Number of homeless people in any given year - that is to say, the fraction of people who experience homelessness at any point in a year. This was the number being used for the UK - I'm going to change it over to be the same as for the US and France now, so that it is comparable, but I think it is worth having a discussion here - we can always go to the other numbers

We should also decide whether or not we want to include people in informal housing in the homelessness rate, or put them into a separate category/column. If you count people in informal housing as homeless, many countries in Africa have "homeless" populations of 60% or more.

These numbers should be consistent across countries; we should be counting the same thing regardless of which country we're doing. It doesn't matter which we are counting, but we should use one or the other, stick with it for every country, and note in the lede which number we're looking at here. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Inappropriate title
This article should be called "list of people living in inadequate shelters". If you know what homeless means and you know the reality of these countries, you can't take this article seriously. There is no way Norway can have more homeless than Brazil and China more than the USA. Barbar03 (talk) 21:38, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

It's in the source of the OECD report. They explain in detail what the differences in definition are of homelessness in different countries. I agree that this article should report that too, or at least refer to the fact that the method per country is not the same. Andeosr (talk) 09:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

There are not 40,000 homeless people in Mexico
There are not 40,000 homeless people in Mexico because every month 144,000 are crossing the border into America. So the homeless population of Mexico has to be ylarger than 144,000.

Based on these numbers we can assume that all of the other countries are under reporting their homeless population’s.

Based on these numbers we can assume that all of the other countries are under reporting their homeless population’s.

This leads us to the concern that the entire globe is over populating drastically. And that the only conceivable answer is to implement

2 child per family Incentives

And repatriation incentives to latitude and hemisphere of natural orange and repatriation incentives to latitude and hemisphere of natural origin.

Let’s try to get the numbers correct.

America is worth several hundred trillion dollars. When someone crosses the border they have usurped $1 million of American infrastructure government technology and culture

Why don’t we just have an open at Disney World? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.233.102 (talk) 11:25, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

All over the place.
Why is Wales listed in addition to (or separately, depending upon how you look at it) from the UK? If we're going down that road, where's Scotland and NI? This is quite aside from the fact that half the countries in the world are missing. Hanoi Road (talk) 17:15, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

The sources
Most of these sources are ridiculous. It includes opinion pieces, articles with no references or only references to other articles on the same website. This wiki article needs to be cleaned up and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to do it by myself, but I'll make a start as soon as possible. When it comes down to statistics, you refer to studies or you don't refer at all. This is really shameful. Andeosr (talk) 09:53, 20 March 2021 (UTC)


 * There is no way that the UK New Zealand, countries like that have a higher homeless rate than the U.S What they’re saying is that they are homeless in the past year rather than what the US stat mostly includes which are unsheltered on a given night homeless. Cyanidethistles (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Validity of Data:
I have been using Wikipedia as basic source of information as its a great medium of distribution information around the world. Now, there are number of times i have observed that the data and information provided on Wiki pages are either totally incorrect or misleading, my intention is not blame someone or malign the source rather its a effort to suggest something which can help thing to improve. There are around 54 million wiki pages in total but info they have, needs to be precise and have some kind of validation, now i would like to appreciate the work done by wikipedia throughout the creation of wiki at the same time. The idea of having wikipedia is a great one, but there is a huge potential of improvement, which in turn can generate large amounts of revenues and increase the number of visitors and their trust on this source. People believe wikipedia is just random pages of info, but this platform can be become a very beneficial source as it very very easy to access and provides information in a very concise manner. There lies a responsibility on the editors and contributors to the pages, the info they publish on their behalf, on these pages should be valid and verified. In the end the staff and management of Wiki have responsibility to not only just earn and burn the revenues, profits and salaries but also to reinvest, reinvent and provide the best info which someone can get access to.

Have a good day,

Cheers. 120.21.185.7 (talk) 01:37, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Cuba
Why isn’t Cuba on this list? 2A02:C7C:748F:300:24EE:8B82:A87B:4EF (talk) 16:10, 14 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I put Cuba on the list myself but they removed it because it had a homeless rate of zero. Obviously the it is too painful to see a communist country with a great achievement. 49.183.32.1 (talk) 01:51, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Numbers and consistent definitions...
As others have noted in the comments above, the relative per-capita rates given in this article make no sense, and are almost certainly not "apples to apples" comparisons....For example, Germany is listed as having nearly twice as many homeless people per capita as the US, despite the fact that Germany's social safety net is much more robust than America's, and anyone who's spent time in American cities and Western European ones knows that one sees WAY MORE homeless people in the former than in the latter!

Someone else commented on the "Homelessness in Germany" article to note that in German there are two words for homeless: "wohnungslos" and "obdachlos." The second means that one literally doesn't have a roof over their head, while the first is a larger category, which simply means that one doesn't have an apartment or dwelling officially registered in their name. The "wohnungslos" is a larger category, which includes the "obdachlos," but also includes lots of other people - like migrants who are indefinitely living in congregate facilities until they're able to get their own apartments, people who are "couch-surfing" at friends' places or with relatives, without registering there, etc.

So I'm pretty sure that the number given for Germany and similar countries is the larger "wohnungslos" (without own apartment/dwelling) number, while the number given for the US is an estimate of the "obdachlos" population - i.e. those sleeping out on the streets - either all of the time, or much of the time, when they're not able to get a bed at one of the limited capacity shelters. -2003:CA:8708:3F26:F44D:CD90:6F75:F5C2 (talk) 10:53, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I've redefined homeless to apply to every migrant worker
Quoted source has a one line statement and no methodolgy. Incredible 135.0.124.242 (talk) 13:36, 29 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Who made this shouldn't as they are literally housed and don't live in the streets. Alexsyma (talk) 15:14, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

300.000.000 homeless in China
This claim is insane. Alexsyma (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I have reverted the change, and also the changes in the article "Homelessness in China". DragonEggLol (talk) 15:41, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Alexsyma (talk) 15:58, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Outdated graphic
The USA is now the highest homelessness rate in the west, for example, but shown as less than other Western nations in this graphic 2A01:4B00:E20C:6A00:4906:AB5F:8284:F104 (talk) 12:32, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Totally absurd data for some countries
I've made a change in the number of homeless for Argentina since it was nonesense. The arcticle stated that 3.4 millions of the population are homeless, which is simply implausible and would imply that over 7% of the population is homeless. No source I could find supported such numbers. I replaced it with the current number that comes from a survey made by Argentine social organizations (link below; please reviewers check the source and the changes I've done).

https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/2023/12/19/el-drama-de-los-sin-techo-casi-10-mil-personas-viven-en-la-calle-y-el-10-son-ninos-y-ninas/

There is more data that seems ridiculous for some other countries, like i.e. Mexico with the number is stated on 14 millions, or almost 11% of the population of such country; I didn't change it since I couldn't find a reliable source but this is still obviously nonesense too, this value comes from a survey about "inadequate housing" which is by no means the same as "homelessness". Whoever is editing the page with this kind of numbers must review their sources.

Inconsistent numbers between "Homeless" and "Homeless per 10000"
For at least 2 counties (Nigeria and Kazakhstan) these numbers don't line up at all.

For Nigeria, it states that the homeless population numbers 25 million. However, it also states that only 206 per 10000. This suggests that the total population of Nigeria is over 1.2 billion people, which is obviously nonsense.

For Kazakhstan, the homeless population is listed as 5,500. Yet, the homeless population per 10000 is listed as 0.6, suggesting that the total population of Kazakhstan is almost 100 million, which again is way off from the actual population.

For many numbers (including the mentioned countries) there are no sources listed, meaning it's not possible for me to change the numbers to an accurate calculation as I do not know which of the numbers (if any, even) are accurate. You-would-like-to-know-eh (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)