Forms of homelessness included in available statistics
What you should know about this indicator
- The IGH Global Framework captures three broad categories of people who may be considered homeless, defined as "lacking access to minimally adequate housing". These categories are (1) People without accommodation, (2) People living in temporary or crisis accommodation, and (3) People living in severely inadequate or insecure accommodation.
- Among the first category, people without accommodation, the IGH Framework distinguishes (1A) People sleeping in the streets or in other open spaces, (1B) People sleeping in public roofed spaces or buidlings not intended for human habitation, (1C) People sleeping in their cars, rickshaws, open fishing boats and other forms of transport, and (1D) "Pavement dwellers" - individuals or households who live on the street in a regular spot, usually with some form of makeshift cover.
- Among the second category, people living in temporary or crisis accommodation, the IGH Framework distinguishes (2A) People staying in night shelters, (2B) People living in homeless hostels and other types of temporary accommodation, (2C) Women and children living in refuges for those fleeing domestic violence, (2D) People living in camps provided for "internally displaced people", and (2E) People living in camps or reception centres/temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants.
- Among the third category, people living in severely inadequate or insecure accommodation, the IGH Framework distinguishes (3A) People sharing with friends and relatives on a temporary basis, (3B) People living under threat of violence, (3C) People living in cheap hotels, bed and breakfasts and similar, (3D) People squatting in conventional housing, (3E) People living in conventional housing that is unfit for human habitation, (3F) People living in trailers, caravans and tents, (3G) People living in extremely overcrowded conditions, and (3H) People living in non-conventional buildings and temporary structures, including those living in slums/informal settlements.
- Within the framework, IGH targets programs and research primarily toward those in Category 1 and in a subset of Category 2 (2A-2C).
- We only consider the data from the source that is at most five years old.
Related research and writing
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
We have simplified the original version of the IGH Framework Category in order to make the metric more clear in a chart. Regardless of the subcategories, we classify the homelessness data into these categories:
- "No accommodation" refers to mentions to the category 1 of the IGH Framework.
- "Temporary and crisis accommodation" refers to mentions to the category 2 of the IGH Framework.
- "Severely inadequate accommodation" refers to mentions to the category 3 of the IGH Framework.
- "None or temporary" refers to mentions to the categories 1 and 2 of the IGH Framework.
- "None or inadequate" refers to mentions to the categories 1 and 3 of the IGH Framework.
- "Temporary or inadequate" refers to mentions to the categories 2 and 3 of the IGH Framework.
- "None, temporary or inadequate" refers to mentions to the categories 1, 2 and 3 of the IGH Framework.
- "Not enough information" refers to the cases where the definition does not align or provide enough detail for IGH Framework classification.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Forms of homelessness included in available statistics”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre and Pablo Arriagada (2024) - “Homelessness”. Data adapted from Institute of Global Homelessness. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/forms-of-homelessness-included-in-available-statistics [online resource]
How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Institute of Global Homelessness (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Full citation
Institute of Global Homelessness (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Forms of homelessness included in available statistics” [dataset]. Institute of Global Homelessness, “Homelessness - Better Data Project” [original data]. Retrieved December 5, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/forms-of-homelessness-included-in-available-statistics