Family Affairs Minister Max Hahn has firmly rejected allegations that his ministry has intentionally underreported the number of homeless people in Luxembourg.
"I strongly refute the accusations of pressure and falsification of figures", he told MPs on Monday morning, where the issue was discussed at the request of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP).
With many questions arising following the publication of the census, the LSAP called on the Family Affairs Minister to appear before the respective parliamentary committee for clarification. Lawmakers sought answers to several questions: Who is actually counted as homeless? Where and when is the census conducted? And has the ministry deliberately made sure that the reported figures remain low?
"It is peculiar that the ministry's report mentions 360 homeless people and 68 people without a fixed abode, making a clear distinction between the two, when people working in the field speak of 900", criticised LSAP MP Georges Engel.
To this, Minister Hahn responded that the goal of the census is to capture a "snapshot" of the situation at a given moment, specifically, to see who lives on the streets and who spends the night on the streets.
The census is conducted between 5pm and midnight. The Democratic Party (DP) minister did not want to let press speculations claiming that pressure was exerted on people to keep figures low go unchallenged. The Minister said: "All the major actors in the field are involved in this operation (...) Do you really think that under ministerial pressure these people would go and say "Alright, now we're only counting one in every two people, or we're not counting certain people at all?"
The homelessness census has been carried out since 2022. Initially limited to Luxembourg City, it has since been extended to Esch-sur-Alzette and the Action Hiver initiative.
However, The Left MP Marc Baum called for the count to be expanded to other municipalities such as Dudelange, Differdange, and Mersch, noting visible homelessness in those areas as well.
Minister Hahn said he did not rule out widening the geographical scope of the census but pointed out the logistical challenges, noting that "more than 100 people" are already involved in conducting the census.
