How many people are homeless in Brussels, and what will October’s count reveal?

Bruss’help has opened registration for its ninth homelessness count across the Brussels-Capital Region, scheduled for the night of 15–16 October 2026. The organisation’s June announcement confirms that preparations are under way, with volunteers and services contributing to an assessment intended to guide public policy. The exercise concerns people living across Belgium’s capital region, rather than its EU institutions. [Bruss’help announcement](https://brusshelp.org/index.php/fr/actus/actualites/3122-denombrement-2026-rendez-vous-le-15-octobre-prochain).

The immediate question is how many people lack a secure home, and what support they need. The previous count recorded 9,777 people in November 2024, an increase of approximately 25% over two years, according to French-language reporting by VRT NWS. For residents, housing services and neighbourhood organisations, October offers a new reference point for assessing the scale of unmet need. [VRT NWS](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/fr/2025/04/16/bruxelles-pres-de-10-000-personnes-sans-abri-ou-sans-chez-soi/).

That total requires careful reading. VRT reported that 992 people were sleeping in public space; the wider count also included people in accommodation and other insecure living arrangements. Bruss’help’s report recorded 1,678 children and adolescents. Homelessness here therefore encompasses substantially more than the people a passer-by might see sleeping near a station. [Bruss’help’s 2024 report](https://www.brusshelp.org/images/Rapport_denombrement_2024_FR.pdf).

The prospect of 20,000 appears in La DH’s supplied headline of 6 September. However, the full article could not be independently inspected, leaving the speaker, calculation and qualifications behind that figure unverified. It should not be treated as an official forecast, still less as an established doubling. The confirmed development is the forthcoming count. [La DH source article](https://www.dhnet.be/regions/bruxelles/2026/09/06/combien-de-sans-abri-a-bruxelles-un-nouveau-decompte-aura-lieu-en-octobre-on-pourrait-atteindre-les-20000-WBHSWERAERHUBMAMN2SYIBXPQQ/).

Bruss’help says teams will count people in public space while accommodation providers submit information about those staying with them; CPAS welfare centres and other services will contribute questionnaires. Moving the exercise from November to October aligns its timing with counts in Flanders and Wallonia. That should improve comparison, although readers will still need to examine coverage and methodology before interpreting any increase. [Bruss’help methodology](https://brusshelp.org/index.php/fr/actus/actualites/3122-denombrement-2026-rendez-vous-le-15-octobre-prochain).

The count also approaches amid a dispute over the Brussels Deal, the federally supported reception arrangement. BX1 reported in July that asylum and migration minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt announced cuts totalling 1,000 places. She cited shorter asylum waiting lists and distinguished her responsibilities from the region’s wider homelessness problem: “I cannot solve all Brussels’ problems with a sum of money,” she said, translated from BX1’s French report. [BX1](https://bx1.be/categories/news/asile-et-migration-la-ministre-van-bossuyt-supprime-a-nouveau-700-places-du-brussels-deal/).

BelRefugees director Mehdi Kassou challenged that framing. He argued that asylum waiting-list figures miss other people needing shelter, including some already registered or protected elsewhere in Europe. “We will see tents reappear,” he warned, translated from French. His prediction describes a feared consequence, not a measured outcome. [BX1 interview](https://bx1.be/categories/news/reduction-des-places-daccueil-a-bruxelles-on-va-revoir-fleurir-les-tentes-les-sacs-de-couchage-se-former-des-squats-etc/).

Samusocial separately warned that reducing reception without alternatives could deepen the crisis. Its July statement explained that emergency accommodation also provides medical, psychological and social support towards leaving homelessness. The disagreement is therefore about both responsibility and measurement: a smaller asylum queue does not, by itself, establish that fewer people need a bed in Brussels. [Samusocial](https://samusocial.be/suppression-de-1000-places-daccueil-le-risque-dune-crise-humanitaire-au-coeur-de-la-capitale-europeenne/).

Beyond emergency capacity lies access to housing. Brussels’ social housing authority, SLRB-BGHM, describes a priority allocation mechanism for homeless people, with a 4.5% quota in 2026 calculated against the previous year’s allocations. That is a policy instrument to assess alongside shelter provision; its existence alone cannot demonstrate that homelessness is falling. [SLRB-BGHM](https://slrb-bghm.brussels/sites/default/files/2025-10/CONTOUR%20%2322_fr%20web.pdf).

Next comes the count itself. Bruss’help’s registration portal seeks at least 200 volunteers to cover all 19 municipalities. Neither the final total nor a results publication date is established in the material reviewed. The eventual findings will need to show who was reached, which situations were counted and how the comparison with 2024 holds up. Until then, 20,000 remains an unverified proposition. [Count registration portal](https://denombrement.org/index.php/fr).