One Young India Press · The OYI Review

Homelessness in India

By Jia Garg

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Abstract

Homelessness in India is a structural crisis of rights, not merely a shortage of beds. The last full enumeration, the 2011 Census, recorded 17,73,040 houseless people, a figure most researchers treat as a serious undercount because of narrow definitions and the invisibility of people sleeping on pavements, at railway stations and under flyovers. This paper argues that homelessness is produced by exclusionary land and urban planning, an ownership biased housing policy, weak legal protection and the active criminalisation of poverty. Drawing on the Census, official scheme data, Supreme Court and High Court judgments, and field surveys by the Indo-Global Social Service Society and the Housing and Land Rights Network, it evaluates why current housing and welfare schemes reach so few of the homeless. It concludes that India needs a housing continuum that prioritises affordable rental and social housing over ownership, a statutory right to shelter, integration of housing with health, education and employment services, and targeted protection for women, children, persons with disabilities and other marginalised groups. The central claim is unchanged from first principles: tackling homelessness is about restoring human dignity, and it requires humane, rights based and integrated policy.

1. Introduction: The Crisis of Homelessness in India

1.1 Background and Rationale

Homelessness and poverty in India represent a long term and deeply rooted socio-economic crisis. Despite rapid urbanisation and economic growth, a significant portion of the population lives in precarious conditions, lacking secure housing, sanitation and access to basic amenities. The 2011 Census of India recorded 17,73,040 houseless people, made up of 9,38,348 in urban areas and 8,34,692 in rural areas, or about 0.15 per cent of the population. This figure is widely considered an underestimate because of the narrowness of the count and the invisibility of many forms of homelessness, and no fuller national count has replaced it since the decadal Census has not been conducted on schedule. This crisis is not an anomaly but a symptom of deeper systemic failures, including urban planning that excludes the poor, laws that fail to protect the rights of the homeless, and inadequate social policies.

Key contributing factors include accelerated rural to urban migration, the growth of the informal labour market, and the disappearance of affordable housing. Consequently, urban areas are becoming increasingly segregated along lines of income, caste and gender. The problem is a human rights issue, not just a logistical one. It represents a fundamental violation of human dignity and citizenship rights.

1.2 Objectives of the White Paper

This paper aims to analyse the structural, legal and socio-economic drivers of homelessness in India. Its primary objectives are:

To examine the diverse factors contributing to homelessness, such as economic insecurity, social disenfranchisement and policy failures.
To evaluate the effectiveness of current housing and welfare initiatives, highlighting their limitations and gaps.
To propose rights based policy recommendations that address immediate shelter needs while also tackling long term structural issues.

The paper seeks to reframe the policy debate, viewing homelessness not merely as a logistical problem but as a fundamental violation of human dignity and citizenship rights.

1.3 Methodology

The analysis uses a mixed methods approach that draws on secondary data from a range of sources. These include national data such as the Census, official scheme records of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, legal documents and government policy reports. The paper also incorporates field based evidence from surveys and non-governmental organisation reports to include the lived experiences of homeless individuals, notably the urban homeless survey of the Indo-Global Social Service Society and the eviction records of the Housing and Land Rights Network. It references key Supreme Court and High Court judgments and international frameworks, such as the right to adequate housing recognised in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to build its case for people centric policy solutions.

2. Understanding Homelessness in India

2.1 Defining Homelessness

Homelessness in India is a complex phenomenon that defies a single definition. The Census of India uses a narrow definition, classifying a houseless household as one that does not live in a building with a roof, staying instead in the open, on roadsides, on railway platforms or under flyovers. This definition largely overlooks those in temporary or informal shelters and situations of hidden homelessness.

The National Urban Livelihoods Mission provides a broader definition, including those who sleep in open spaces such as pavements, parks and bus stations. However, it still does not fully capture individuals in overcrowded housing or insecure temporary lodgings. UN-HABITAT distinguishes between primary homelessness, meaning rooflessness, and secondary homelessness, meaning the lack of a secure home. The lack of a uniform, comprehensive definition in India leads to significant undercounting and policy neglect, hindering the creation of targeted interventions. The scale of that undercounting is visible in a single city: for Delhi, the 2011 Census recorded 46,724 homeless people, while the Indo-Global Social Service Society counted 88,410 and the Delhi Development Authority estimated around 150,000. When the same population is counted at three very different numbers, the definition itself becomes a policy problem.

2.2 Demographics of the Homeless

The homeless population in India is drawn overwhelmingly from marginalised groups.

Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes are heavily over-represented because of historical marginalisation in land and housing rights. In the Indo-Global Social Service Society survey of urban homeless people, almost 80 per cent belonged to these communities, reflecting a long history of economic and social exclusion.
The majority are daily wage earners and casual labourers, such as construction workers, street vendors and waste pickers, who are excluded from formal housing markets by unstable incomes and a lack of documentation.
Women and children are especially vulnerable. Many women become homeless because of abandonment, widowhood or domestic violence and face a high risk of gender based exploitation and assault. Homeless children are at high risk of malnutrition, abuse, trafficking and dropping out of school.
The elderly and persons with disabilities are often failed by both public shelters and social security programmes, leaving them in a state of extreme vulnerability.
Circular migrants, who move between rural and urban areas for seasonal work, are also a significant group. Their lack of permanent records and address proof excludes them from most government welfare programmes.

2.3 Causes of Homelessness

Homelessness in India stems from a confluence of economic, social and structural factors.

Economic insecurity: A large share of the workforce is in the informal sector, which offers no job security or social protection. Rising urban land costs and the unaffordability of formal housing push low income groups onto the streets. The absence of affordable rental options makes this worse.
Social exclusion: Caste and gender based discrimination are major drivers. Women may become homeless because of dowry related torture or abandonment. Persons with disabilities and mental health conditions, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, are often disowned by families and face discrimination in accessing support services.
Structural and policy failures: Urban planning has historically excluded the poor. Forced evictions for infrastructure projects and city beautification drives directly create homelessness. The clearest example is the run up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, where the Housing and Land Rights Network documented the forced eviction of at least 200,000 people across the city, in most cases without adequate rehabilitation. Welfare schemes, in turn, often require proof of a permanent address, which the homeless cannot provide, so the very programmes designed to help the poor structurally exclude them.

3. Policy and Legal Landscape

3.1 National Housing Policy Frameworks

India has launched several national schemes to address urban housing shortages, but these have largely failed to reach the homeless.

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission: Launched in 2005, its sub-mission for the urban poor targeted slum dwellers but largely excluded street dwelling homeless people who lacked documentation.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Urban: This Housing for All mission, launched in 2015, is heavily focused on ownership. By 2025 the scheme had sanctioned around 1.2 crore houses and reported over 90 lakh completed, a large delivery record, yet the model remains unsuitable for the homeless, particularly migrants and people in extreme poverty who cannot secure home loans or produce the required documentation. It does not adequately address the need for affordable rental housing.
Shelter for Urban Homeless under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission: This is one of the few schemes that directly targets the urban homeless, and it set the norm of one permanent shelter for every one lakh people in urban areas. The scheme remains under-resourced relative to need. According to figures placed before the Supreme Court by the Union government, as of 4 December 2024 only 2,557 shelters had been sanctioned across states and union territories, of which 1,995 were functional, with a combined capacity of about 1,16,000 beds. Against a homeless population counted in the millions, this is a fraction of what is required, and the quality of shelters is often poor, with overcrowding and a lack of basic amenities.

3.2 Gaps and Limitations in Policy

The current policy architecture fails to address homelessness effectively for several reasons:

Exclusionary eligibility criteria: Most housing and welfare schemes require identity proof, income certificates or ration cards, which the homeless typically lack. This bureaucratic hurdle acts as a powerful barrier to access.
Focus on ownership over rental: Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana prioritise ownership, a model inaccessible to those without stable incomes. There is a significant policy gap on affordable rental housing for migrant labourers and temporary workers, who form a large part of the homeless population.
Fragmented implementation: Because housing is a state subject, the implementation of central schemes varies widely across states. Many state run shelters are in poor condition and lack basic amenities, making them unusable for many homeless individuals.
Lack of integration: Housing policies operate in isolation and are rarely joined up with healthcare, education or employment services, which is crucial for meeting the multiple needs of chronically homeless people.

3.3 Legal and Rights Framework

India has no dedicated statute that recognises the rights of the homeless, but the courts have built a strong body of rights based interpretation.

Constitutional protection through Article 21: In Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985), a five judge bench of the Supreme Court held that the right to livelihood is part of the right to life under Article 21, though it still allowed the eviction of pavement dwellers subject to fair and reasonable procedure. In Chameli Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1996), the Court went further and held that the right to shelter is a fundamental right forming part of the right to life under Article 21, placing an obligation on the State. This interpretation is a powerful advocacy tool but lacks strong legislative backing.
Supreme Court supervision of shelters: Through the long running writ petition E.R. Kumar v. Union of India, the Court has monitored the shelter scheme, directed states to establish shelters on the one per lakh norm, and continued to intervene. As recently as 2025 the Court directed the National Legal Services Authority to inspect Delhi shelters that had been closed for metro construction and to report on alternative arrangements for those displaced. Enforcement of such orders, however, remains weak because of bureaucratic inertia and limited political will.
Criminalisation of poverty: Colonial era laws such as the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959 have long been used to detain and harass homeless people. In Harsh Mander v. Union of India (2018), the Delhi High Court struck down the provisions that criminalise begging under that Act as applied in Delhi, holding them unconstitutional. Crucially, the Act still remains in force in many other states, so across much of the country homelessness and destitution can still be treated as a criminal, rather than a welfare, matter.

3.4 International Commitments

India acceded to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1979. Article 11 of the Covenant recognises the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. Key components of adequate housing, such as security of tenure, affordability and habitability, are largely denied to the homeless in India, revealing a gap between international commitment and domestic practice.

4. Socio-Economic and Structural Barriers

Homelessness is the result of deep structural disparities, social prejudice and systemic failure.

4.1 Land and Urban Planning Constraints

Market oriented urban development has systematically excluded low income groups from formal housing, and the scarcity of affordable urban land is a major barrier. Forced evictions for infrastructure and real estate development are a direct cause of homelessness, and the scale is documented and current. The Housing and Land Rights Network recorded that at least 7,38,438 people were forcibly evicted across rural and urban India between January 2022 and December 2023. In 2023 alone at least 5,15,752 people were evicted and 1,07,449 homes demolished, the highest annual figure the organisation had recorded in seven years, and over 1.68 million people were evicted between 2017 and 2023. City master plans frequently fail to allocate space for low cost or rental housing, reinforcing structural discrimination and pushing the poor to the periphery of urban life.

4.2 Lack of Social Services and Documentation

The absence of identity or address proof excludes the homeless from essential social protection programmes, including subsidised food from the Public Distribution System, public healthcare schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, education under the Right to Education Act, and employment support under MGNREGA. The exclusion is measurable. A United Nations Development Programme survey found that only about 3 per cent of homeless people possessed a voter identity card or ration card. In the Indo-Global Social Service Society urban homeless survey, only 18 per cent could obtain subsidised ration through the Public Distribution System, and 41.6 per cent had no access to any health service. This lack of documentation renders the homeless effectively invisible to the state welfare system.

4.3 Criminalisation and Stigmatisation

In India, homelessness is often punished rather than merely ignored. Colonial era laws that criminalise vagrancy and begging have been used to detain, fine and further marginalise homeless individuals, and although the Delhi High Court struck down the begging provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act for Delhi in 2018, similar laws remain on the books in other states. Cities still conduct drives to remove homeless people from public sight, treating them as a policing issue rather than as citizens in need of protection. This is compounded by social stigma, reinforced by media portrayals that stereotype the homeless as lazy or criminal, which fuels discrimination and exclusion.

4.4 Gender, Disability and Intersectional Vulnerabilities

Women who are homeless face heightened risks of violence and exploitation. Many shelters are not designed for women or families and lack safe sanitation and privacy. Persons with disabilities and mental health conditions are poorly served by existing systems, and there is a severe shortage of disability friendly shelters and support services. Transgender individuals are frequently rejected by family and face discrimination in accessing shelters and other urban services. These vulnerabilities compound one another, so that a homeless woman with a disability, or a transgender migrant, faces layered exclusion that single issue policies cannot address.

5. Case Studies and Field Data

5.1 Delhi

As the national capital, Delhi shows how contested even the basic count is: the 2011 Census recorded 46,724 homeless people, the Indo-Global Social Service Society counted 88,410, and advocates before the Supreme Court have cited estimates as high as three lakh. Migrant construction workers from states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh often live on the streets or in shelters because affordable housing is out of reach, and lacking local documentation they are ineligible for welfare services. Many homeless families have been displaced more than once, including through the large scale evictions around the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Existing shelters are frequently reported as overcrowded, unsafe and unsuitable for families, and the shortage of safe, women only shelters forces many women into precarious living situations.

5.2 Mumbai

In India's financial capital, extreme wealth exists alongside dire poverty, and large numbers of people, many of them migrants, sleep on streets and at railway stations. The prohibitive cost of housing and rent denies them stable accommodation even when they find daily wage work. Shelters under the urban livelihoods programme are reported as overcrowded and short of adequate sanitation and food services, failing to provide a dignified living space.

5.3 Rural India

Homelessness is also a significant rural problem, affecting landless agricultural labourers and tribal communities in particular. Families that migrate for work are frequently forced into makeshift shelters, and those without formal land ownership or documentation are routinely excluded from ownership based housing schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The rural dimension is why the national count records more houseless people in villages than the popular image of homelessness as a purely urban, pavement level phenomenon suggests.

5.4 The Indo-Global Social Service Society Urban Homeless Survey

The most useful recent field evidence comes from the urban homeless survey conducted by the Indo-Global Social Service Society, a non-governmental organisation working with marginalised communities since 1960 and whose earlier study of the Delhi homeless informed the Supreme Court order for night shelters. The survey covered 4,382 homeless people across 15 cities in five states, namely Bihar, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Its findings sharpen the argument of this paper:

Almost 80 per cent of respondents belonged to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes, confirming that homelessness tracks entrenched social exclusion.
About 60 per cent were born in the same city where they were found, which challenges the assumption that homelessness is only about recent migration and points to an intergenerational cycle of urban poverty.
Only 18 per cent could access subsidised ration through the Public Distribution System, and 41.6 per cent had no access to any health service, showing how documentation barriers translate into denial of basic entitlements.

It is worth correcting a common referencing error here, since accurate attribution matters for this evidence: IGSSS stands for the Indo-Global Social Service Society, not for any similarly abbreviated body, and the survey findings above are its own.

6. Proposed Policy Reforms and Solutions

Addressing homelessness requires a holistic approach that integrates housing, social services and legal protection.

6.1 Holistic Housing Policies

The policy focus must shift from an over-reliance on ownership to a comprehensive housing continuum.

Promote affordable rental housing: The government should actively promote subsidised rental housing for the urban poor, backed by legal protections for tenants against arbitrary eviction.
Strengthen the Shelter for Urban Homeless scheme: The scheme needs significant expansion and improvement, including more shelters, better sanitation and security, and specialised facilities for women, children and persons with disabilities, so that the one per lakh norm becomes a functional reality rather than a paper standard.

6.2 Legal Reforms

Establish a right to housing: India needs dedicated legislation that establishes a right to housing as a fundamental right, building on the Supreme Court's reasoning in Chameli Singh. Such a law should prevent forced evictions without rehabilitation and create a universal public housing programme free from documentation barriers.
Repeal punitive laws: Laws that criminalise homelessness and begging, such as the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, should be repealed nationwide, extending the logic of the 2018 Delhi High Court judgment to the whole country and ending the stigmatisation and harassment of the poor.

6.3 Social Services and Welfare Integration

Universal social protection: India must build social protection programmes that are accessible to the homeless even without documentation, including free healthcare and mental health services, food security through the Public Distribution System, and income support.
Education and skill development: Special education programmes, including mobile schools, are needed to keep homeless children in the education system, and vocational training should help adults secure stable employment.

6.4 Focused Interventions for Vulnerable Groups

Gender sensitive shelters: There is an urgent need for dedicated women only shelters that provide a safe environment together with support services such as healthcare and legal aid.
Disability inclusive support: Shelters must be made accessible for persons with disabilities, and integrated mental healthcare is critical, as many homeless individuals live with unaddressed mental health conditions.

6.5 Public Awareness and Advocacy

Changing public perception is crucial for lasting change. This means media campaigns to fight stigma, advocacy for inclusive urban planning that prioritises low cost housing, and support for community based housing solutions.

7. Conclusion

Homelessness in India is a multidimensional crisis rooted in systemic economic, social and political inequality. It is a structural problem driven by exclusionary land policies, social discrimination and the criminalisation of poverty, and it will only worsen with continued urbanisation unless there is a fundamental shift in policy and governance. The evidence assembled here, from the Census undercount to the 2024 shelter figures placed before the Supreme Court and the eviction records of 2022 and 2023, shows a gap between stated commitment and lived reality that has widened rather than closed.

An effective strategy requires inclusive housing policies that prioritise affordable rental and social housing over ownership alone. This must be supported by legal reform that guarantees the right to housing and prevents arbitrary displacement, and by a holistic approach that integrates housing with healthcare, education and employment. Policies must be sensitive to the intersecting vulnerabilities of women, children, persons with disabilities and other marginalised groups. Ultimately, tackling homelessness is not just about providing shelter: it is about restoring the human dignity of every individual. Through humane, rights based and integrated policies, India can break the cycle of homelessness and ensure that all citizens have a safe, secure and dignified home.