As of 1 January 2026, the state counted 12,451 homeless people. A study by the charitable foundation “Depaul Ukraine,” conducted together with the sociological group “Rating” and the Ptukha Institute for Demography and Quality of Life Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, with support from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, paints an entirely different picture. According to the sociologists’ estimates, the true number of people without a roof over their heads ranges from 57,000 to 121,000, and specialists in the field suggest that, taking hidden homelessness into account, the figure could exceed one million. The gap between official records and reality became the central nerve of the study, which combined surveys of facilities in four cities, interviews with homeless people themselves, expert interviews, and a telephone poll of 1,200 Ukrainians.
How they counted those the state doesn’t see
Throughout April 2026, the researchers recorded visits to aid centers and feeding points in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Lviv, and surveyed 1,090 people. The methodology accounted for repeat visits by the same individual and simultaneous use of multiple facilities, so the final figures reflect an estimated number of people rather than visits.
In Kyiv, after recalculation, sociologists counted 1,038 homeless people versus 170 service recipients according to the Ministry of Social Policy — the real number turned out to be six times higher. Odesa, with the most extensive aid network, yielded an estimated 516 people versus 232 officially recorded, roughly a twofold difference. The sharpest contrast was recorded in Kharkiv: an estimated 3,924 homeless people versus only 160 on record, meaning a twenty-five-fold excess. Lviv was not included in the comparative analysis due to insufficient representation of facilities. At the same time, hundreds of people in each city do not visit any center at all and remain outside any records whatsoever.
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Who ends up on the street
The portrait of Ukrainian homelessness remains predominantly male — 69% versus 31% women. The largest group, nearly half of respondents, consists of people aged 41–59; another 39% have crossed the sixty-year mark, while young people under forty make up only 14%. The condition is stable over time: 63% have been without housing for more than two years, and among people with disabilities the share reaches 76%.
The war has changed the structure of vulnerability. The largest group is formed by internally displaced persons (40%), followed by people with disabilities (33%) and lonely elderly people (28%). Experts note a sharp rise in requests for help from veterans who find it hard to return to civilian life, and a shift in the gender balance: men of mobilization age avoid the centers out of fear of being conscripted, so it is women’s requests that have grown more noticeably. Many people were made homeless by the war imperceptibly — those who lost their housing under shelling are outwardly indistinguishable from the rest of the population, and this blurring of the line complicates both their identification and society’s perception of the problem.
A roof overhead and the reasons for losing it
The main cause of housing loss was military action or occupation — cited by 46% of respondents, and among displaced persons this factor reached 84%. The second most common cause was family conflict or the breakdown of a relationship (22%), and the third was real estate fraud (12%).
More than half of homeless people (54%) currently need a temporary place to stay, while another 40% already have somewhere to live. A readiness to move forward is also evident in attitudes toward permanent housing: 58% would agree to receive social housing on condition of paying below-market rent and fulfilling certain obligations, including employment or treatment for addiction. The highest readiness is shown by former prisoners (84%), people with disabilities (64%), and displaced persons (63%).
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Health that no one is there to treat
Health status is characterized by a marked predominance of negative assessments: 59% described it as poor or very poor. Just over half of respondents (54%) consistently receive the medical care they need, while 25% mostly do not have it. Psychological support is practically absent — 77% did not receive a single consultation over the past year. Specialists emphasize that the current population of the centers increasingly requires serious medical care and palliative support, for which the organizations have neither the staff nor the infrastructure. A separate vicious circle is the link between the absence of documents and the inability to obtain treatment: 37% of respondents reported difficulties with their passport.
Work, income, and the burden of addiction
The labor market is almost closed to homeless people. 78% of respondents have no work, and only 6% have a permanent job. The main source of income for 41% remains state payments, and for 18% it is aid from charitable foundations. Specialized training and employment programs adapted for homeless people are effectively nonexistent in Ukraine.
The data on addiction shatter a widespread stereotype. 63% of respondents have never faced alcohol addiction, and 92% have never faced drug addiction. Among those who did have experience of alcohol addiction, 38% encountered it only after they had ended up on the street. Experts interpret these figures unambiguously: addiction is more often a consequence of homelessness or develops alongside it, rather than standing at its origins.
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The “moral career” that complicates return
Family ties among this category of people are for the most part severed: 62% of respondents do not maintain positive contact with relatives, and 59% have no one to rely on in a crisis situation. Despite this, the majority retain hope — 58% see their future as rather optimistic, and 86% would like to receive help to return to a stable life. Among their top priority needs, people cite permanent housing (51%), permanent work (37%), and medical care (36%).
This hope is countered by a phenomenon that the researchers, following the sociologist Erving Goffman, call the homeless person’s “moral career.” Within three to six months of losing their housing, a person’s self-perception transforms from an ordinary citizen into someone who accepts marginal status as the norm. Beyond this threshold, the motivation to obtain documents and look for work fades, and accepting help becomes considerably harder. A successful return happens where a person manages to form a new, accepting environment — through the community of a center, restored relationships with family, or the support of a social worker.
What society thinks about it
A telephone poll of 1,200 Ukrainians revealed a sharp gap between national and local perception. 69% of citizens consider the situation in the country to be critical, but as soon as the question touches their own community, the anxiety subsides — only 28% call the local situation critical. 76% of respondents note a worsening as a result of the war, with the most radical assessments coming from the East and South due to their proximity to combat.
The emotional attitude is predominantly sympathetic: 64% feel compassion when encountering a homeless person, and 89% recognize them as full members of society. At the same time, only 14% consider the actual societal attitude to be positive, which indicates hidden stigmatization. Expert interviews show that it manifests most vividly in institutional practices, when employees of state services and medical institutions serve homeless people on a residual basis because of their appearance or their inability to navigate the bureaucracy.
Stereotypes proved to be persistent. 80% of respondents are convinced that most homeless people could work if they wanted to; 70% associate homelessness with addiction; and 53% believe that people choose this way of life themselves. The real causes cited by specialists are much broader — from family conflicts and real estate fraud to leaving orphanages, places of detention, and psychiatric institutions.
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Responsibility, assessments, and the rift with the state
Citizens place the main responsibility for solving the problem on local (39%) and central government (38%). The paradox is that it is precisely the work of charities that the population rates best: 64% speak approvingly of the activities of civic organizations, while 40% approve of local authorities and only 18% of the central government. 68% of respondents would support opening a shelter near their own home.
Experts see the root of the problem at the level of state governance. They name the absence of strategic planning in the Ministry of Social Policy — where priorities are set no more than a year ahead — as the key flaw. Most organizations that actually work with homeless people are funded from foreign sources and have no guaranteed support locally, so the system operates in a “firefighting” mode.
A roadmap to systemic change
The authors of the study see a way out in a long-term state program built on an evidence base. They propose creating a register of homeless persons, into which data from community record-keeping centers and civic organizations would be integrated. Instead of funding the maintenance of municipal institutions, the state could pay for clearly defined packages of social services with standards for their provision, and also introduce legislative changes that would allow people to receive social and medical services in parallel with restoring their documents, rather than after it is complete.
The authors call housing provision, based on a “Housing First” principle adapted to Ukrainian realities, the cornerstone. They emphasize that housing alone does not solve the problem and must be accompanied by psychological and social support, assistance with employment, and the gradual preparation of a person for independent living. Without such support, it risks turning into a system that will be abused, or merely postponing a person’s return to their previous state.
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