Beneath The Concrete: The Rising Calamity of Homelessness in Nepal

250k+ people. No permanent home. The rising tide of homelessness in Nepal is a "hidden" emergency in plain sight.

Homelessness in Nepal has escalated as a heavy socio-economic challenge, casting a shadow over the country’s development goals and urban prosperity. While rural poverty remains a persistent issue, the issue is most evident in urban centers like Kathmandu, where rapid, often unforeseen, migration and a lack of affordable housing have severely beaten infrastructure expansion.

A Staggering Scale of Vulnerability

Recent estimates highlight the severity of the crisis: approximately 250,000 people are experiencing literal homelessness in Nepal, sleeping on streets, in temples, or in abandoned buildings. Beyond this, an estimated 2.8 million people—roughly 10% of the country’s population—live in substandard, informal slum conditions, often lacking access to basic services like clean water, sanitation, and electricity.

The capital city, Kathmandu, bears the brunt of this crisis. Slum settlements, often referred to as 'sukumbasi,' have risen along the banks of the Bagmati river and in other marginalized areas, leaving thousands of families, including many children, living under precarious conditions.

Root Origins: Why the Calamity Persists

Homelessness in Nepal is a multifaceted issue driven by deeply interrelated socio-economic and environmental factors. As one of the world's fastest-urbanizing nations, Nepal faces a growing gap between housing supply and the needs of its most vulnerable populations.

• Migration and Urbanization: Driven by economic disparities, rapid rural-to-urban migration has spurred unplanned growth in the Kathmandu Valley, far exceeding housing capacity and straining infrastructure. Data indicates internal migration drives this urban expansion at 4% annually, creating significant pressure on housing and services. MDPI Research
• Poverty and Economic Inequality: High urban housing costs keep legal tenancy out of reach for the 25% of Nepalis living in poverty. Recent initiatives focus on closing Nepal's gender digital gap and leveraging EdTech to drive economic mobility and poverty reduction. Reports The Borgen Project. (2025–2026)
• Natural Disasters: As a country prone to natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, and landslides frequently destroy homes, displacing populations and creating new cohorts of homeless individuals.
• Social and Personal Factors: Family abandonment, domestic violence, mental illness, and lack of education contribute heavily to people, particularly children and the elderly ending up on the streets.

The Effect on Sidelined Communities

In the heart of Nepal’s cities, families under plastic-roofed shacks face a double crisis: severe environmental threats and the looming fear of forced evictions. A 2025 report confirmed that marginalized families are losing their homes and legal identity, deepening a cycle of poverty, child labor, and social exclusion.

Efforts and Future Directions

• Rescues and Rehabilitation: Manavsewa Ashram, in partnership with Kathmandu Metropolitan City is keenly rescuing, caring for, and reuniting street-dependent people with their families, with over 1,600 people already housed in various ashram branches.
• Multi-Storied Housing: The Government of Nepal has initiated construction of multi-storied buildings to resettle inhabitants from riverbank slum areas.
• Target 2082 BS: The government and partners have declared a goal to eradicate street-dependent individuals by 2082 BS, supported by the Street Children Special Protection Guidelines 2082.
• Comprehensive Strategies: Experts emphasize the need for long-term strategies, including:
• • Implementing affordable housing policies within urban planning.
  • Enforcing the Right to Housing Act-2018.
  • Providing livelihood opportunities and social services for the urban poor. 

Manavsewa Ashram plans to train 1,000 full-time campaigners and 100,000 volunteers by 2082 BS to support this mission of creating a compassionate society.