- Homeless population may be as high as 500,000, stakeholders say, far above the official estimate of 18,000.
- Stakeholders called for stronger housing policies and social protection programmes.
- Speakers urged closer national and county government collaboration to tackle homelessness.
Kenya’s homeless population could be as high as 500,000, according to stakeholders who say official government estimates dramatically understate the scale of the crisis.
Speaking at the National Conference on the State of Homelessness and Street Connectedness in Nairobi, campaigners challenged government data that puts the number of street connected persons at about 18,000. They argued the true figure lies somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000.
Eric Mukoya, Executive Director of the Undugu Society of Kenya (USK), led the charge against the official numbers.
“We have official data indicating that we have 18,000 street connected persons in this country. From where we sit, based on our experience and interaction with communities, we think there are many more. In our estimation, the number is between 300,000 and 500,000,” Mukoya said.
He also questioned why the count had fallen so sharply from the roughly 46,000 street connected people identified in the 2019 national census. In his view, the current figures fail to capture families without secure housing and other hidden forms of homelessness.
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Debate over the housing programme
The gap between the two figures has renewed questions about whether Kenya’s affordable housing programme is reaching people who are genuinely homeless, or whether it mainly serves low and middle income earners who can already afford to buy or rent.
For Mukoya, homelessness is not just about missing a roof. “Homelessness is not simply the absence of a house; it is the denial of dignity, belonging and equal citizenship,” he said.
He pointed to rapid urbanisation, displacement, gentrification and widening inequality as the main drivers pushing more Kenyans into homelessness, cutting off their access to jobs and essential services in the process. Housing, he argued, should be treated first as a constitutional and human right rather than a market commodity.
Calls for a national policy
Constitutional lawyer PLO Lumumba urged the government to draw up a comprehensive national homelessness policy and deepen cooperation between national and county governments.
“The government must have a clear policy position on this issue, and that policy must be translated into coordinated action. Now that we have devolved governments, it will take collaboration between the national and county governments to address the problem,” Lumumba said.
He warned that failing to act would carry wider social costs. “Homelessness has wider implications, including crime and early pregnancies. These are issues that cannot be allowed to take root in a country that seeks to eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable development,” he added.
USK also called on national and county governments to fully implement Article 43 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to accessible and adequate housing, alongside Articles 28 and 29 on human dignity and personal security.
Meeting these obligations, it said, would require more inclusive housing policies, stronger social protection programmes and greater involvement of people with lived experience of homelessness in shaping policy.
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Council of Governors Director of Programmes and Committees Wangalwa Kizito described homelessness as a matter of inclusion that has not received enough attention from government.
“The issue of homelessness is an issue of inclusion that the government has not adequately addressed. We must work together to support counties in tackling this challenge at the local level,” Kizito said.
As it stands, the wide gap between official and stakeholder estimates is likely to keep scrutiny on the affordable housing programme and whether Kenya’s most vulnerable citizens are actually within its reach.
By Benedict Aoya
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