The Supreme Court of India mentions that the right to dignified shelters is a necessary component of the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

While the government aims to ensure every citizen has a home by 2022, the number of families that live on the streets of urban India grew between 2001 and 2011.

About 1.77 million people (0.15 % of the country’s total population) are houseless according to the 2011 Census. Between the two censuses (2001-11) of India, the number of houseless household has slightly increased. It is growing at just about 0.50 % from 4.47 lakh to 4.49 lakh. However, urban India showed higher decadal growth rate (36.7%) increased from 1.87 lakh to 2.56 lakh household. In contrast, rural India posing negative decadal growth rate of about  25% falling from 2.59 lakh to 1.92 lakh household. 

On the other hand, the share of the houseless population was 0.19%, which declined to 0.15%, a significant fall in the decadal growth of the total homeless population of India. A drastic decline in the homelessness is found in rural areas. However, homelessness is more distressing in urban regions of India. It is interesting to note that even though the absolute number of houseless household increased, the mean size of these households shrank between the census decade. In 2001, the average household size was 4.34 in India, which fell to 3.90 in 2011. This is more noticeable in urban India as the numbers went down from 4.14 to 3.70. Thus, it can also be inferred that some individuals might have abandoned their families or drifted away from them.

The state-level distribution of homeless population depicts an uneven and dissimilar pattern. States having the highest share of houseless population found in Uttar Pradesh (18.56%), followed by Maharashtra (11.9%), Madhya Pradesh (8.26%) and Andhra Pradesh (8.19%).  These five states contribute more than half of the houseless population of the country. During the decade 2001-11, more than half of the States and Union Territories of India have shown a negative growth of houseless population. Many bigger states showing a drastic decline in the houseless population are Maharashtra (-38.1%), Madhya Pradesh (-36.7%), Gujarat (-34.6%) and Odisha (-20.6%).  Although Punjab, Uttarakhand, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala observed positive decadal growth among their homeless households, however, at the same time, these states recorded negative growth among the homeless population. It may be attributed to falling average size of the homeless households. Also, many of them might have drifted away from their families. Interestingly, 11 States/UTs (Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan) showed an increase in the number of houseless population. 

Spatial heterogeneity in the houseless population (rural and urban) has been captured across 640 districts in India in the figures below. The relative situation of rural India portrays that the western part of India, followed by south-western and south-eastern parts are mainly contributing to the houseless population. Further, at micro level, the maximum concentration of the rural houseless population was found in Jaipur followed by Belgaum, Nasik and Allahabad, showing highest contributing districts of houseless population. 

In contrast, the houseless situation in urban India represents that it is no longer a metropolitan phenomenon; homelessness is densely growing.  However, all the major metropolitan cities are contributing significantly higher numbers of the houseless population. Similarly, the highest concentration of houseless population was observed in the districts of Kanpur followed by Kolkata, Mumbai, Surat, and Hyderabad.

The findings of our study show that the maximum concentration of homelessness is observed in the megacities of India. A significantly positive correlation (r=0.5044, p

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