[huuu]

Unfortunately you would be amazed and ashamed.

In the USA it's estimated that one third of the homeless people suffer a serious mental illness.

I live in the Netherlands and I think the numbers are the same here. Ofcourse there is help but most homeless people move around a lot so it can be difficult to track them and help them.

Also: having worked with homeless people I know for sure they will get some kind of mental illness sooner or later.

[misja111]

>> I live in the Netherlands and I think the numbers are the same here.

80% of the homeless in the Netherlands suffer from mental illnesses. Source (in Dutch): http://www.ontmoeting.org/dak_thuislozen I guess the explanation for the difference is that the social security system in the Netherlands is better, so there's less chance for ending up in the street when you lose your job.

[skrebbel]

I always had the idea that homelessness numbers were way higher in the US than in the Netherlands. This helped keep me firmly on my high horse (I'm Dutch too). Was I wrong?

[rfrey]

Apparently there are about 27,000 homeless in the Netherlands[1], out of a population of 15.5 million, so 1,742 homeless per million people.

In the USA there are apparently 633,782 homeless [2] per night out of 319 million people, or 1,987 per million people.

But that's heavily influenced by the way homeless people are counted. The US number is explicitly the number of people homeless on any given night. Estimates of the number of people in the US that will be homeless for some period each year ranges from 2.3 - 3.5 million [3] (7,210 and 10,972 per million resp.) This is estimated from shelter occupancy.

I couldn't figure out if the Dutch statistics agency were counting number of people homeless in a year, or number on any particular night, but [4] hints to me that they're estimating the annual population, so I think the best comparison is:

Netherlands: ~1,700 homeless per million USA: 9,000 +/- 2000 homeless per million

[1] http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/ar...

[2] https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2012AHAR_PI...

[3] http://www.familyhomelessness.org/media/306.pdf

[4] http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/methoden/toelichtingen/alfabet/...

[Symbiote]

According to [1], the Netherlands has about 0.16% homeless people per capita, and the USA 0.50-1.10%. (If I'm comparing figures correctly, since that page has "counted on one night" and "total for the year" for different countries.)

It's probably significant that a lot of the US is a lot warmer year-round.

[1] https://www.homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/#eu...

[zeveb]

> It's probably significant that a lot of the US is a lot warmer year-round.

Yup, exactly this. It's why there are so many homeless folks in Hawaii: it's easy to live there without shelter. Living in a part of the world where the weather gets cold forces people to make decisions.

[Sparq]

I think GP means the percentage of homeless people that have a mental illness is similar to the US, not the percentage homeless compared to the total population.

[treehau5]

One third? I think it is much higher, simply for the fact that you almost have to be mentally ill in some form of fashion to continue to live on the street. It's an awful place and I wish it upon no one.