Fewer homeless people in the Netherlands after years of increase

As of January 2020, there were 36.000 homeless people in total in the Netherlands, which is the first time in years that the number has decreased. The last research in 2018 recorded 39.000 homeless people. According to the Statistics Netherlands, 8 of 10 homeless people are male and live in one of the four biggest cities in the country.

The research also showed that there are now fewer young homeless people (age group 18-27). In 2020 there were 8.5 thousand people in this age group, as opposed to 10.7 thousand back in 2016, which was the last time this age classification was used.

The share of homeless people with a non-Western background increased from 36 percent in 2009 to 50 percent in 2020. In the four major cities, in particular, 66 percent of the homeless have a non-Western background.

The latest figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics were recorded before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, meaning the effects of the crisis on the number of homeless are not included in the figures.