Violence against Homeless People

In February 2007, project UDENFOR published a report on a survey describing violence against homeless people in Copenhagen. The report Violence Against Homeless People – homeless people’s experiences of violence in the streets was written by Ms Serap Erkan, sociologist and information officer in project UDENFOR. The report concludes that half of the 50 homeless informants had experienced violence committed by attackers that were unknown to them.

In the survey we have tried to make a distinction between violence committed by homeless people against other homeless people, and violence committed against homeless people by people, who are not homeless. However, we found that to our informants, this distinction did not seem natural. In other words, the conclusion seems to be that the violence experienced by a homeless person is traumatic regardless of whether the attacker is another homeless person or not.

However, the general conclusion of the report is that violence is a fundamental aspect of living life in the streets, and the experiences of the informants ultimately illustrate that the life of a homeless person is a life lived in danger.

The report discusses broad aspects of the topic, including characteristics of the attackers and how the informants themselves judge the extent of violence committed against homeless people.

While the actual report is unfortunately only available in Danish, the English summary of the report will provide you with a general idea of the contents, just as you will be able to read our recommendations within this area. You can read and download the entire report from this web site.   

Download the report 

Download the american report Hate, Violence, and Death on Main Street Report on Hate Crimes And Violence Against People Experiencing Homelessness, 2005 af National Coalition for the Homeless.