You read the part where they say things are not really comparable because different nations use different definitions, right?

E.g. if you scroll in the article you will find that Germany reports as homeless: "Living temporarily with family and friends due to lack of housing", "Living in institutions"

"Living in institutions" is clarified as: "Including people who stay longer than needed in health institutions needed due to lack of housing; and people in penal institutions with no housing available prior to release".

The US does not count these categories.

Now, it would be interesting to see how the numbers would change if the US actually counted all the millennials who moved back in with their parents because they could not find an affordable place, and all the prisoners and parolees who stay with relatives.

I'm European and I've been to several major cities in the US. I've also visited most european capital cities.

In both cases, as a tourist, I never go too far away from the popular places and never been there for most than 3 or 4 days.

Don't know the reasons (honestly) but the homelessness and poverty I've seen in the US is nowhere to be seen in Europe. I repeat, in "popular" places and vicinity.

How do they come out with such numbers? Is the impression of a tourist wrong? Where are the poor and destitute in Europe compared to the US?

> How do they come out with such numbers?

Different countries define and count "homeless" in different ways.

Some places will only count rough sleepers, and they'll do that by once a year sending people out to count people who are sleeping on the streets. This obviously severely undercounts those who are homeless.

Other places will have a definition for "statutorily homeless" which will include people living in bread-and-breakfast style accommodation - emergency short term lodgings funded by the state.

It sounds like these statistics are utterly useless for national comparisons

> About half of the surveyed countries also cover people living in non-conventional dwellings and people living temporarily with family and friends due to lack of housing,

> In Sweden the official figure given by the National Board of Health and Welfare includes lots of people who don’t have a permanent home but aren’t living in shelters or on the streets. For instance, Sweden includes people set to be released from jail within three months and have nowhere to go

Interesting fact, but not sure what Canada or Australia are doing in that list. Maybe they're in Eurovision?

Correct.

They're semantically European but syntactically not. :-)

i.e. in the OECD countries..

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/oecd-countries/

I live in Canada, and have been to many US states. This doesn't reflect what I've seen in the least. Even if it is true, it still doesn't change the fact that if the poorest 20% is richer than Europe's middle class that you have more than enough resources to do something about it.