Each year FEANTSA, an EPHA member, carries out a European survey on a specially selected topic in order to draw together the findings from the survey in a single report.
The 2006 report focuses specifically on health and begins by describing the homeless profile and the problems they face due to difficult living conditions and bad nutrition. These include mental health problems; development or aggravation of substance-abuse and addiction; and other health problems, resulting from an unsanitary environment and exposure to infectious illness.
The report attempts to provide solutions to these problems and draws a set of conclusions.
Problems associated to homelessness
FEANSTA highlights the fact that health and homelessness relate to each other in a multifaceted way.
Mental health: according to the reports submitted by the countries there are far higher rates of mental ill-health among people experiencing homelessness than among the general population. There is a clear lack of mental wellbeing amon most people who are homeless. Dual diagnosis (ie simultaneously suffering from mental illness and drug addiction) is significantly more prevalent among homeless people.
Social status: a person’s state of social wellbeing is closely connected to their overall state of health. Social problems impact on the health of people experiencing homelessness.
Infections: almost all of the reports mentioned the problem of the prevalence of tuberculosis among roofless and houseless people in particular.
Substance abuse: there are generally high levels of drug and alcohol abuse.
Higher levels of hepatitis and HIV-AIDS.
Treatment problems associated with homeless peoples’ negative experiences with the healthcare system; failure to recognise ill-health; failure of treatments as a consequence of the reality of homelessness.
Barriers to care for people who are homeless and efforts to overcome these barriers
The report also offers an overview of the different healthcare and social protection systems in Europe. It highlights some provisions that tailor specifically homeless people or vulnerable groups.
The most commonly cited barriers are administrative and financial barriers, as well as the ’gap between the hospital and homeless life’.
FEANTSA reports that most healthcare systems in EU countries exclude homeless people and prevent them from accessing the care that they need. This is often due to lack of entitlements to access the healthcare system, in the case of non-nationals and undocumented migrants, but can also be because care is not completely free.
However, some countries do provide care to low-income vulnerable groups for free, or for a minimal charge. The best examples are UK and Denmark where regardless of income or administrative status, free primary and secondary healthcare and hospital treatment is provided.
