THE Eurodiaconia network of 62 Churches and Christian organisations has urged greater efforts to tackle family homelessness in the European Union.

“Family homelessness is growing in Europe yet frequently remains overlooked and underdiscussed,” the network says in a new report.

“Families are less likely to sleep rough, often relying instead on informal and precarious accommodation arrangements. . . But rising housing costs, increasing living expenses, higher eviction rates and growing pressures on social protection systems have further exacerbated the problem.”

Two million Eurodiaconia staff and volunteers run 33,000 social and health-care centres across the continent. Its 14-page report says that about 400,000 children were sleeping rough or in shelters across Europe on any given night in 2024, in “highly gendered” conditions mostly involving single mothers who suffer from poverty, unaffordable housing, relationship breakdown, and domestic violence.

“Whereas some countries, such as Denmark and Germany, have defined and recorded family homelessness in their official statistics, in many others it is not always recognised,” the report says.

“Today, family homelessness remains a persistent issue, further exacerbated by rising housing costs, cost of living increases, increasing eviction rates and growing pressures on social protection systems.”

Church leaders and organisations have frequently warned of poverty and exclusion across the EU’s 27 member-states, a situation often exacerbated for refugees, migrants, and marginalised groups.

The Eurodiaconia report says that many poor families live in “informal and precarious conditions” and have avoided seeking help “out of fear and shame”. EU initiatives, such as a 2021 European Child Guarantee, created “relevant policy instruments”, but have not been implemented in the face of “bureaucratic complexity” and “distrust of the system”, the report says.

Among its policy recommendations is a call for stronger low-threshold support and “adequate protection systems”, as well as more “tailored approaches” to family needs and “better co-ordination between policy and governance levels”.