The European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) has developed a European Typology of Homelessness and housing exclusion (ETHOS) as a way to improve the understanding and measurement of homelessness in Europe, providing a common “language” for international discussion on homelessness. This classification was launched in 2005 and is used for different purposes – as a framework for debate, for data collection purposes, for policy purposes, monitoring purposes, and in the media.

It is important to note that ETHOS is not the method of measuring homelessness that is used in all of the European Union states because homelessness is perceived and tackled differently in each country. ETHOS was developed through a review of existing definitions of homelessness and the realities of homelessness which service providers are faced with on a daily basis.

The ETHOS categories attempt to cover all living situations which amount to forms of homelessness across Europe and highlight that this approach confirms that homelessness is a process that can affect many vulnerable households at different points in their lives, rather than a static phenomenon:

Rooflessness:
 without a shelter of any kind, sleeping rough;
Houselessness:
 with a place to sleep but temporarily in institutions or shelters;
Living in insecure housing:
 threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenancies, eviction, domestic violence;
Living in inadequate housing:
 in caravans on illegal campsites, in unfit housing, in extreme overcrowding.