Homelessness in Ukraine in Wartime: Assessment of the Situation and Public Attitudes is a major analytical study conducted by Depaul Ukraine, in partnership with the Sociological Group “Rating” and the Mykhailo Ptoukha Institute for Demography and Quality of Life Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The research received financial support from the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD). Depaul Ukraine is part of the international Depaul Group and has worked with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Ukraine for nearly two decades.

The study combines several complementary forms of research conducted in April 2026. It includes face-to-face interviews with 1,090 people using homelessness services in Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Lviv; a detailed survey of 250 people experiencing homelessness; in-depth interviews with 10 representatives of organizations providing assistance; and a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,200 Ukrainian adults. It also uses the European ETHOS Light framework, which recognizes that homelessness includes not only living on the street, but also staying in shelters, temporary accommodations, non-conventional dwellings, or temporarily with relatives or friends because no secure home is available.

Drawing on this extensive evidence, the following series explores twelve different dimensions of homelessness in wartime Ukraine—from its largely hidden scale and its causes to health, employment, public prejudice, housing solutions, and the need for systemic change. Together, the posts seek to make visible the people behind the statistics and to encourage an informed, compassionate, and effective response.

We invite all members of the Vincentian Family to learn more about the homelessness crisis created and intensified by the war in Ukraine, to discover how Vincentian organizations are responding, and to engage more deeply with the findings of this study—either through these twelve summaries or by reading the full report.

You can read or download the full report by clicking here (in English).

Emergency shelters save lives. But when people remain in them for months or years because no permanent housing is available, a temporary response can become a form of prolonged insecurity. The study reveals a system that protects people from the street without consistently providing a path toward a home.

A Safe Night Is Not Yet a Home

For a person sleeping outdoors, the offer of a shelter bed can mean protection from cold, violence, hunger, illness, and death. During wartime, when homes are being destroyed and displacement is increasing, emergency accommodation is indispensable.

Shelters provide much more than a roof. They may offer meals, showers, clean clothing, medical referrals, help replacing documents, legal advice, and contact with social workers. They can create the first stable environment a person has experienced in months.

But a shelter is designed to respond to an emergency. It is not intended to become someone’s permanent address.

The report Homelessness in Ukraine in Wartime: Assessment of the Situation and Public Attitudes shows that many people in Ukraine are not moving quickly from emergency accommodation into permanent housing. Instead, they remain within shelters and other temporary arrangements for extended periods—sometimes for years.

The result is a painful contradiction: people may be protected from sleeping on the street while still being unable to escape homelessness.

Where People Are Sleeping

Among the 250 people experiencing homelessness who participated in the detailed survey, 60 percent identified a shelter as their principal sleeping arrangement.

Another 19 percent were staying with friends or relatives. Nine percent reported sleeping outdoors, including on streets, in parks, or in building entrances. Six percent were living in places not intended for habitation, such as garages, basements, or abandoned buildings. A smaller number stayed in hotels, hostels, or other locations.

The high proportion using shelters partly reflects how the research was conducted. Interviews took place in shelters, service centers, and near food distribution points, so people already connected with services were more likely to be reached than those living entirely outside the assistance system.

Even so, the findings reveal how central shelters have become to the survival of people experiencing homelessness in Ukraine.

Shelter use was especially common among men, older adults living alone, and people who had been homeless for more than two years. Sixty-seven percent of men reported sleeping in shelters, compared with 42 percent of women.

Women were more likely to stay with acquaintances or relatives: 31 percent reported doing so, compared with 13 percent of men. This may keep some women away from the visible dangers of the street, but it can also conceal their homelessness and leave them dependent on unstable or potentially unsafe relationships.

Different sleeping arrangements therefore reflect different forms of insecurity. A shelter bed, a borrowed sofa, and a basement may not carry the same risks, but none necessarily provides the rights and stability of a home.

The Difference Between Shelter and Housing

A shelter can offer immediate safety, but housing provides something more lasting.

A home allows a person to close a door, keep possessions secure, establish routines, receive mail, cook, rest, invite family members, search for work, recover from illness, and participate in community life. It offers privacy and a measure of control over daily existence.

Emergency accommodation often cannot provide these conditions.

Shelters may have shared rooms, limited space, rules about entry and departure, restricted privacy, and little opportunity for residents to shape their surroundings. Some cannot accommodate couples, families, pets, people with significant disabilities, or those requiring medical care.

A person may be grateful for the protection a shelter offers and still experience uncertainty every day.

Will the bed remain available? How long can the person stay? What happens after the permitted period ends? Is there any affordable apartment to move into? Will a landlord rent to someone without formal employment or complete documentation?

These questions distinguish temporary safety from lasting security.

The report’s use of the European ETHOS Light framework is important here. Under this broader understanding, people living in emergency shelters or temporary accommodations are still experiencing homelessness. They are not living rough, but neither do they possess secure housing of their own.

Months and Years in Emergency Provision

The report found that 66 percent of respondents had experienced a period of stable emergency or temporary accommodation lasting at least three consecutive months during the previous year.

Among those who had stayed continuously in one place, shelters were by far the most common location, cited by 54 percent. Others had stayed with acquaintances or relatives, in hostels, in non-residential premises, at transportation stations, in tents, or in detention facilities.

Three months may sound like a relatively short period. But the broader findings show that temporary accommodation frequently extends much longer.

Approximately 62 percent of respondents had been without permanent housing for more than two years. Long-term homelessness was especially common among people with disabilities and adults aged 60 or older.

This means that shelters are not simply receiving people for a few nights while a permanent solution is arranged. In many cases, they are supporting residents who have no realistic destination to which they can move.

The emergency system has become the long-term housing system by default.

This places pressure on both residents and organizations. Beds occupied for months or years cannot be offered to people newly arriving from the street. Staff must respond to increasingly complex medical, psychological, and social needs. Facilities designed for short stays become responsible for long-term care without the space, staffing, or financial resources required.

Who Most Needs Emergency Accommodation?

More than half of those surveyed—54 percent—said that they currently needed emergency or temporary accommodation, such as a shelter or a room in a hostel.

The need was greatest among people with the weakest support networks. Seventy-six percent of former prisoners said they required temporary accommodation, as did 64 percent of respondents who had no one they could rely on.

The need was also high among people with disabilities, at 59 percent, and internally displaced people, at 57 percent.

These groups face different barriers.

A person leaving prison may have no family home to return to and no documents or employment. A displaced person may have lost housing through occupation or destruction and be unable to afford rent in a new city. Someone with a disability may require an accessible apartment that is particularly difficult to find.

For those without relatives or friends who can help, even a brief interruption in shelter access can result in sleeping outdoors.

Emergency accommodation is therefore not optional. Ukraine needs enough safe and accessible places to respond to immediate crises. But expanding shelter capacity alone will not resolve the underlying problem if residents have nowhere permanent to go.

The Shortage of Social Housing

The report repeatedly points toward a central obstacle: the lack of sufficient social and affordable housing.

When people leave shelters, they generally need somewhere they can afford on a very low income. Yet rents may be beyond the reach of those receiving pensions or public benefits. Landlords may require deposits, employment records, identity documents, or references that a person experiencing homelessness cannot provide.

The war has made the situation more difficult. Destruction has reduced the housing supply in some regions, while displacement has increased demand in communities receiving large numbers of people. Rents can rise precisely where housing is most urgently needed.

Without a strong social housing system, the available options are extremely limited.

A person may remain in a shelter, move temporarily into the home of a relative, accept unsafe or overcrowded accommodation, or return to the street. None of these represents a stable exit from homelessness.

When respondents were asked about their most important needs, permanent housing was the most frequently selected answer, cited by 51 percent. It ranked above permanent employment and medical assistance.

This finding should shape the response. People experiencing homelessness need food, health care, documents, employment, and social support. But they also identify the lack of a permanent home as their most urgent concern.

People Are Willing to Accept Housing

The study challenges the idea that people remain homeless because they do not want the responsibilities associated with having a home.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would accept permanent social housing under conditions such as paying affordable rent, seeking employment, receiving treatment where necessary, or maintaining contact with social services.

Willingness was especially high among former prisoners, at 84 percent. It was also reported by 64 percent of people with disabilities, 63 percent of internally displaced people, and 69 percent of respondents under 40.

Even among those who had experienced homelessness for more than two years, 60 percent said they would accept housing under such conditions.

These figures reveal a significant desire for stability. Many people are prepared to contribute financially within their means and to participate in programs intended to support their recovery.

However, the report also adds an important caution: housing should not necessarily be conditional on demonstrating that a person is “ready.”

People with the greatest needs may be precisely those least able to meet a long list of requirements before receiving a home. Serious illness, trauma, disability, dependency, or years of street homelessness can make it difficult to maintain appointments, complete paperwork, or achieve employment while still living in crisis conditions.

Requiring people to solve every other problem before they receive housing can leave them permanently trapped outside it.

Housing First: Beginning With a Home

Traditional homelessness services have sometimes followed a “staircase” model. A person moves through a sequence of steps—street outreach, emergency shelter, treatment, employment preparation, transitional accommodation—and receives permanent housing only after demonstrating sufficient stability.

The logic appears reasonable: a person should become “housing ready” before being given a home.

But the report notes that international evidence has exposed serious weaknesses in this approach. People may fail at one stage, lose their place in the program, or return to the street before ever reaching permanent housing.

Housing First begins from a different principle: a stable home is not the reward at the end of recovery; it is the foundation that makes recovery possible.

Under this model, people experiencing long-term homelessness receive permanent housing without first being required to demonstrate sobriety, employment, or successful completion of a series of temporary programs. Flexible and personalized support is then offered according to the person’s needs.

This does not mean abandoning responsibilities or leaving residents without guidance. It means recognizing that medical treatment, employment, restored relationships, and psychological recovery are often easier to achieve once a person has a secure place to live.

The report states that housing-led and Housing First approaches have demonstrated positive results in other European countries but remain almost entirely absent in Ukraine. It also warns against systems that make housing dependent on an abstract judgment of “readiness.”

Housing Alone Is Not Always Enough

Providing permanent accommodation is essential, but some people will also need sustained support to keep it.

Someone who has spent years moving among streets, shelters, and abandoned buildings may struggle to adjust immediately to living alone. Bills must be paid, rooms maintained, appointments attended, and relationships with neighbors managed. Isolation can become a serious risk, particularly for older adults or people with mental health needs.

The report emphasizes the importance of a supportive environment. Successful exits from homelessness often involve social workers, staff members at assistance organizations, relatives, trusted acquaintances, or peers who provide encouragement and practical help.

Support may include replacing documents, accessing benefits, arranging medical care, finding employment, learning household skills, managing finances, and rebuilding family relationships.

The study describes several stages used by existing services: establishing trust, meeting basic needs, identifying individual difficulties, addressing those problems, creating a supportive social environment, and providing social housing.

However, it stresses that these steps do not always need to occur in a fixed order. Housing can—and often should—be provided early rather than postponed until every other difficulty has been resolved.

The most effective response combines permanent housing with flexible, person-centered accompaniment.

The Cost of Waiting Too Long

The distinction between temporary and permanent accommodation is also connected to time.

The report explains that after several months of homelessness, many people begin to experience changes in self-esteem, motivation, and expectations. Daily survival gradually replaces longer-term planning. Marginalization begins to feel normal.

Experts suggested that this process can become significant within three to six months. As homelessness continues, returning to ordinary routines may become more difficult.

This does not mean that long-term homelessness is irreversible. The report contains many indications that people can and do rebuild stable lives. But it demonstrates why rapid intervention matters.

When someone loses a home, the goal should not be to manage that person within emergency systems indefinitely. It should be to restore permanent housing before temporary homelessness becomes chronic.

Rapid rehousing, rental support, mediation with landlords, reconstruction assistance, prevention of eviction, and social housing can all shorten the period during which a person remains without a home.

Every additional month in emergency accommodation can make reintegration more difficult and more expensive.

The Role of Depaul Ukraine

Depaul Ukraine’s work illustrates the need to combine immediate protection with permanent solutions.

The organization operates 15 shelters and support centers and has assisted more than 32,000 people experiencing homelessness. These services respond to urgent needs and provide essential points of contact for people who might otherwise remain entirely outside the assistance system.

At the same time, Depaul Ukraine has provided 14 apartments through a pilot social housing project and supported the reconstruction of more than 3,000 war-damaged homes. It also offers legal and psychosocial assistance and advocates for changes in national housing policy.

This combination is significant.

Shelters save lives today. Housing reconstruction can prevent families from becoming homeless tomorrow. Social apartments create a route out of emergency accommodation. Advocacy seeks to ensure that these solutions become part of public policy rather than isolated charitable projects.

The goal is not to choose between emergency relief and systemic change. Both are necessary—but they serve different purposes.

From Hospitality to a Lasting Home

Shelter has deep importance within the Vincentian tradition. Offering food, warmth, welcome, and protection to a person in danger is an immediate expression of charity and recognition.

But Vincentian service also asks what happens after the immediate crisis has passed.

A shelter bed should not become the final answer simply because no other answer has been prepared. A person should not spend years in emergency accommodation when what is needed is a modest, affordable, permanent home accompanied by appropriate support.

This is the difference between managing homelessness and ending it.

Hospitality opens the door. Justice ensures that the person eventually receives a door of his or her own.

For the Vincentian Family, the report invites a response that holds these two commitments together: protecting people from the street today while working to ensure that temporary shelter becomes a bridge—not a destination.

In wartime Ukraine, emergency centers will continue to be essential. But their deepest success should not be measured only by the number of nights they provide. It should also be measured by the number of people who leave them for a safe and lasting home.

Image © DePaul Group.