The COMHOM project has reached a significant milestone with the publication of its Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Framework for Homeless Service Providers, developed under Work Package 3. This document lays the foundation for a shared, European-wide approach to understanding and assessing homelessness services, helping ensure that data is comparable, reliable, and useful for improving policies and interventions across Europe. The framework has been elaborated by Juan Manuel Rodilla, Gloria Puchol, and Maite Arrondo from Sant Joan de Déu Valencia (SJDVAL).
A clearer picture of homelessness in Europe
The report begins with an in-depth review of 149 scientific and grey literature sources to understand how homelessness is currently monitored across different welfare systems. The findings show that, while many tools exist, they are often fragmented and inconsistent from one country to another. This highlights the urgent need for a common framework – one of the core ambitions of COMHOM.
Building on proven concepts
To address this, the research team compared existing conceptual frameworks, including ETHOS, pathways models, ecological approaches, and prevention-focused perspectives.
Among these, ETHOS Light (European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion) was selected as the backbone of the COMHOM framework because it captures homelessness from multiple angles – legal, physical, and social – and is already widely used across Europe. This provides a strong and shared starting point for harmonisation.
A Robust, Collaborative Methodology
The COMHOM research team carried out extensive analytical work, reviewing over 50 academic and technical publications, building a Theory of Change, and conducting expert consultations. The Delphi process was instrumental in validating relevance, feasibility, and comparability across European contexts.
A Platform Designed for Four User Groups
The COMHOM digital platform will visualise these variables and support decision-making for four key user profiles:
- Practitioners: to monitor individual progress and design data-informed care plans.
- Service managers: to compare services, analyse success rates, and plan resources.
- Researchers: to download the COMHOM dataset and conduct advanced analyses, including machine learning.
- Policy makers: to understand trends, evaluate policies, and explore scenarios using digital twins.
- Each profile will have access to dashboards tailored to its needs, enabling both micro-level intervention monitoring and macro-level policy strategy development.
A Comprehensive Set of Variables for Monitoring and Evaluation
A core achievement presented in Athens is the definition of a three-level variable system – micro, meso, and macro – designed through a rigorous analytical process and validated by experts using a Delphi methodology.
Micro-level variables
A final set of 48 variables was defined to characterise individuals experiencing homelessness and track their trajectories over time. These variables enable organisations to monitor changes throughout the intervention and analyse the factors driving successful exits from homelessness.
Additional operational variables were also established—such as unique user ID, service start and end dates, type of service, and reason for exit—to guarantee data integrity and longitudinal follow-up.
Meso-level variables
Still under development, meso indicators will capture organisational characteristics such as service capacity, staffing, support modalities, and programme budgets—key elements for understanding how services influence outcomes.
Macro-level indicators
Macro variables describe the socioeconomic and structural context, including housing market conditions, labour market dynamics, poverty indicators, and welfare expenditure. These datasets will allow cross-country comparisons and the study of structural drivers of homelessness.
What comes next
This achievement marks a key milestone for COMHOM. The next phase will involve piloting the framework with 25 service providers across Europe, testing and refining the indicators, and preparing its integration into the digital COMHOM platform. A user-friendly dashboard will support frontline workers, service managers, and policymakers with clear, data-driven insights, paving the way for a European standard in homelessness monitoring and evaluation..
By establishing a shared European framework, COMHOM is helping lay the groundwork for a more coherent, preventive, and evidence-based approach to homelessness – ultimately supporting more effective solutions and better outcomes for people across Europe.
The COMHOM project has received funding from the European Union’s European Social Fund (ESF+) under Grant Agreement No. 101172624