A homeless person is an individual who lacks housing, including one whose primary residence during Census Night is a supervised public or private facility that provides temporary living accommodation; or whose primary residence is a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for persons.

Accurately capturing the homeless population of the country is an important aspect of the Census. A significant number of homeless persons will spend Census Night in communal establishments (CEs) which provide dedicated shelter and facilities for those without permanent homes. CSO will be producing a special release on homelessness based on the Census.

In the Irish census information about families is not captured for persons in communal establishments (everyone in a CE completes an Individual Form, including couples or families in hotels etc.). However, when reporting on the homeless it is important that we can report on the number of families that are homeless, and not just individuals. Accordingly in homeless accommodation all families (couples or parents with children) will be issued with a household form to complete, while individuals on their own will be issued with an individual form in the usual way.

There are two types of homeless accommodation classified in your ERB. One is 'gen' which is general homeless shelters / accommodation and the other is 'mix' which signifies private emergency accommodation - hotels or B and B's. Both types were identified for the Census by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government in consultation with other organizations such as the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, Focus Ireland and Simon.