Next week, on the night of October 21 to 22, a census of the homeless will take place in Riga using a special methodology, the Riga City Council reported.
City authorities want to obtain accurate data on people without housing. This data is necessary for planning the development of the social services system.
The census of the homeless will simultaneously take place in 35 European cities. This is the first project of its kind aimed at creating a unified and reproducible methodology for counting the homeless.
The methodology provides for a standardized approach to counting in order to determine the number of homeless people, understand their living conditions, the causes of homelessness, and the types of assistance needed. Until now, there has been no unified approach to this type of accounting in Europe.
In Riga, researchers, social workers, municipal institutions, and volunteers will participate in the census, including the Welfare Department of the Riga City Council, shelters, municipal police, medical institutions, and places of detention.
The city will be divided into zones where surveys will be conducted to collect data on people without a permanent residence, their situations, as well as to determine the necessary mechanisms and forms of support.
On November 24, 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling on the EU and member states to eliminate homelessness by 2030 by developing European-wide frameworks for national strategies, decriminalizing homelessness, and continuing to allocate funding to address this issue.
For reference: According to a study by the OECD/Eurostat, as of 2022, approximately 5,977 people were registered in Latvia as having used shelter and hostel services. However, it is not certain that they do not have permanent housing. They may have been experiencing temporary difficulties.
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