“No One Becomes Homeless in Germany.” - How One Sentence Makes the Dead Invisible

Germany counts a lot. Income, employment, inflation, new housing. But it does not count how many homeless people die. Not nationwide, not consistently, not continuously. Those who die become part of the general mortality statistics. Whether someone lived on the street does not appear there. That means there is officially no problem that would need to be politically addressed. Our documentation examines what can be substantiated for the period from October 2025 to January 20, 2026 - and what cannot. Not because no one died, but because no one is required to bring the data together.

Germany has no nationwide official statistic that separately records deaths of homeless people. Neither on an ongoing basis nor retroactively, neither by months nor by years. This applies to 2025 as well as to the beginning of 2026. The cause-of-death statistics of the Federal Statistical Office do not distinguish by housing status. If a person dies on the street, in an emergency shelter, or after being admitted to a hospital, the fact of homelessness disappears entirely into the general category. There is no separate variable, no additional marker, no mandatory reporting. As a result, there is no nationwide standardized figure.

At the same time, the size of the affected group is known. According to the last comprehensive estimate by the Federal Association for Assistance to the Homeless, around 1,029,000 people in Germany were living without their own housing at the end of 2024. This figure includes people in emergency shelters, collective accommodations, transitional solutions, and hidden homelessness. Within this group, about 56,000 people lived without any shelter at all, meaning permanently or predominantly on the street or exclusively in emergency overnight facilities. This number is not marginal. It describes a population the size of a major city. Our current research points to over approximately 1,350,000, a figure we will continue to pursue and for which we are also planning a film documentary. (As of January 18, 2026)

At least part of this is officially confirmed. As of the reference date January 31, 2025, the Federal Statistical Office reported 474,700 housed homeless persons. This figure explicitly does not include those living on the street or using emergency shelters only sporadically. It is also a reference-date figure and is not updated monthly or seasonally. There is no updated official publication for the end of 2025 or for the winter of 2025-26. It can therefore be stated that the winter of 2025-26 began with a known, high number of homeless and unsheltered people. There are no indications of a structural drop in these numbers in the fall of 2025. Neither were tens of thousands of new housing units created nor was homelessness administratively resolved. The starting conditions remained unchanged.

The regional distribution of this situation has been stable for years. Around 75 to 80 percent of homeless people live in western Germany, about 20 to 25 percent in eastern Germany, including Berlin. Per capita, western states also lead. City-states show the highest rates. Bremen reaches levels of over 120 homeless people per 10,000 inhabitants, Berlin lies in the range of about 90 to 100, Hamburg between 85 and 95. North Rhine-Westphalia is around 55 to 65, Bavaria and Hesse in the range of 50 to 60, Baden-Württemberg slightly below. Eastern non-city states are significantly lower, in some cases under 20 per 10,000. These differences follow rent levels and the availability of affordable housing, not climatic or cultural factors.

Particularly relevant for mortality risk is the group of people without shelter. Nationwide, this involves around 56,000 people. In absolute numbers, they are heavily concentrated in western metropolitan areas. North Rhine-Westphalia accounts for ranges of about 18,000 to over 23,000 people without shelter, Bavaria around 12,000 to 16,000, Baden-Württemberg about 9,000 to 11,000, Hesse around 5,600 to 6,900. Berlin is above 8,000, Hamburg above 3,000, Bremen just over 1,200. Eastern states are partly in the low four-digit, partly in the three-digit range. These figures are estimates, but they are consistent across different surveys.

For these people, there is no protection through statistics. When they die, they are not counted as homeless. This is where the non-verifiability of the Merz statement begins. Because without counting deaths, it can neither be confirmed nor refuted whether “no one becomes homeless” or whether people simply die outside of perception. What exists instead are local fragments. Hamburg documented at least 44 deaths of homeless people for parts of 2025. This number includes deaths on the street and in hospitals. It is one of the few publicly stated figures at all. There is no nationwide extrapolation from it. For the winter of 2025-26, there are indications of cold-related deaths from individual cities, some confirmed, some only reported. These pieces of information are not brought together.

Berlin provides a particularly clear example. For the period from October 2025 to January 20, 2026, there is no central figure for homeless deaths. Individual deaths became publicly known. At the end of November 2025, memorial plaques for deceased homeless people were unveiled. These plaques presuppose that there were deaths. They name no number. They replace statistics with remembrance. The responsible authorities each have partial knowledge. Police know locations of death, hospitals know admissions, cold-weather services know contacts, districts know individual cases. This information is not consolidated. There is no nationwide reporting obligation, no statutory requirement, no political target. The non-recording is structural.

This brings us to the decisive point. The statement “No one becomes homeless in Germany” is not falsifiable because the state does not collect the data necessary to test it. The statement moves in a space that is deliberately left empty. There are high, documented figures on homelessness. There are documented ranges for unsheltered homelessness. There are documented local death counts. What is missing is the connection of these data into a nationwide balance. Not because it would be technically impossible, but because it is not politically предусмотрed. As long as homeless deaths do not exist as a separate category, they remain without consequence. As long as they remain without consequence, the sentence about a guaranteed roof can be uttered without being tested.

This documentation does not show an isolated case or a mood. It shows a gap. A gap that did not arise by chance. Homeless people die in Germany. Not rarely, not unexpectedly, but regularly. Their deaths are administratively not treated as a distinct social problem. And precisely for that reason, they are politically displaced. End of the documentation.