The reflection engaged by the European Statistics Office (Eurostat) to develop an indicator of homelessness for the European Commission set off a controversy between statisticians and the representatives of European charitable associations gathered together in a working group coordinated by Eurostat. While the group managed to produce a harmonised definition of the homeless category, there was a great deal of debate over the measuring instruments. In fact, each country has its own specific manner of handling the homeless, and hence a specific way of counting them, which shows the diversity of collection methods, counting units (individuals or households) and methods of presenting the data.