Integrating administrative data with Istat surveys for municipal homelessness risk assessment

This study investigates the insights and analytical potential of integrating ISTAT data sources concerning the homeless population. The main goal is to derive new municipal classifications associated with different levels of expected homelessness rates, crucial for designing tailored sample surveys. Comprehensive direct enumeration of the homeless population is cost-intensive and often impractical, while accurate territorial indicators could guide surveys only in specific areas. The surveys sources considered are the National Survey on Homelessness in Italy (2011 and 2014), annual surveys on residential socio-assistance facilities, the permanent census of non-profit institutions, and annual surveys on administrative population registers. Furthermore, the Integrated Data Base of Usual Residents (AIDA) has been integrated, since the AIDA individual occurrences, known as Signs of Life (SoL), combine information from many administrative sources to enhance the analysis of specific population profiles. This paper begins with an introduction to the challenges of data collection on homelessness and the importance of integrating various data sources. It then reviews existing ISTAT surveys and administrative databases, detailing their possible role in estimating the homeless presence at municipal level. The methodology section describes the municipal dataset built to analyse integrated sources and the computation of 'risk' indicators that are supposed to be associated with homeless presence. Results highlight opportunities for improvement of data quality and implications for data collection and estimation. Future research goals include updated ad hoc surveys and the design of an information system for continuous monitoring of homelessness in Italy.