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).

Homelessness damages health, while poor health makes escaping homelessness more difficult. In Ukraine, the loss of identity documents can tighten this cycle further, blocking access to medical care, social benefits, employment, and housing precisely when a person needs them most.

When One Problem Locks the Door to Another

For a person experiencing homelessness, illness rarely exists as a separate problem.

Chronic pain can make it impossible to work. Reduced mobility can make reaching a service center difficult. A mental health condition can complicate administrative procedures. Without employment or benefits, paying rent becomes impossible. Without housing, receiving treatment, storing medication, eating regularly, and recovering after an operation become much harder.

Then bureaucracy can add another barrier. A person who has lost a passport, tax identification number, pension certificate, or proof of displacement may be unable to obtain the very services needed to rebuild a stable life.

The report Homelessness in Ukraine in Wartime: Assessment of the Situation and Public Attitudes describes this as a particularly damaging cycle. Poor health can contribute to homelessness; homelessness worsens health; and missing documents can prevent the person from receiving assistance for either problem.

What begins as the loss of a wallet, an apartment, or a place of registration can gradually close the doors to medical treatment, income, legal employment, and permanent housing.

Health Deteriorates Without a Home

Among the 250 people experiencing homelessness who participated in the detailed survey, 59 percent described their health as poor or very poor. Thirty-six percent rated it as “rather poor,” while 23 percent described it as “very poor.”

Only 35 percent gave a positive assessment of their health.

These results reflect the conditions in which people without permanent housing must survive. Sleeping outdoors, in abandoned buildings, or in crowded temporary accommodations exposes the body to cold, dampness, heat, poor sanitation, inadequate nutrition, and interrupted sleep.

Even shelters that provide safety may not be equipped for people with serious medical conditions. Shared rooms and limited accessibility can be especially difficult for someone recovering from a stroke, living with reduced mobility, or requiring assistance with personal care.

Health problems can also remain untreated for long periods. A minor wound may become infected. A manageable chronic condition may become an emergency. Medication can be lost or stolen, and following a regular treatment schedule becomes difficult when daily life is organized around finding food and a place to sleep.

A home is not itself medical treatment. But stable housing creates the conditions in which treatment can work.

Pain, Disability, and Reduced Mobility

The survey reveals a population with substantial physical needs.

Mobility difficulties affected 58 percent of respondents. Thirty percent described those difficulties as severe. They were especially common among people with disabilities, former prisoners, older people living alone, and men.

Persistent pain or discomfort affected 51 percent of respondents, with 23 percent describing it as severe. One in five reported difficulties caring for themselves, including washing or dressing.

These figures have practical consequences.

A person with reduced mobility may be unable to reach a soup kitchen, climb the stairs of a shelter, wait for hours in a government office, or travel across a city to attend a medical appointment. Someone who cannot wash or dress without assistance may be judged for an unkempt appearance, even though that appearance is the visible result of disability and the absence of appropriate care.

Services often expect people to move through systems designed for those who are healthy and mobile. Applications may require visits to several offices. Medical appointments may be located far from shelters. Buildings may lack elevators or accessible bathrooms.

For a person in pain, every additional step can become another reason that help remains out of reach.

Those Facing the Greatest Health Risks

The burden of poor health is not distributed equally.

People with disabilities represented 33 percent of the homeless respondents, while older adults living alone accounted for 28 percent. Both groups frequently reported difficulties with documents, mobility, pain, and access to care.

Women assessed their health more negatively than men: 69 percent of women described it as poor, compared with 54 percent of men. People without anyone to rely on were also more likely to say their health was very poor than those who had some form of personal support.

Former prisoners appeared particularly vulnerable. Thirty-six percent rated their health as very poor, and more than half had never been registered with a general practitioner.

These categories often overlap. An older woman may also be internally displaced and have a disability. A veteran may be living with a serious injury and psychological trauma. Someone leaving prison may have a chronic illness, no documents, and no relatives willing or able to help.

An effective response cannot treat each condition in isolation. Housing, health, disability, income, documentation, and personal support must be addressed together.

Medical Care Reached Only Inconsistently

Only 54 percent of respondents said they consistently received medical care when they needed it.

A further 20 percent said they received care sometimes, while 25 percent largely did not obtain the assistance they required.

The fact that slightly more than half regularly receive treatment shows that medical and social services are reaching many people. But it also means that almost half experience interruptions or significant gaps in essential care.

Sixty-four percent were currently registered with a general practitioner, while 7 percent had been registered previously but had since lost that registration. Twenty-eight percent said they had never been registered with a GP.

Registration was more common among women, adults aged 60 or older, people with disabilities, and respondents who had a partner. By contrast, 52 percent of former prisoners had never been registered with a doctor.

Formal registration, however, does not guarantee that care will be practically accessible. A person may still lack transportation, money for medication, help understanding instructions, or a secure place in which to recover.

Medical systems are generally organized around the assumption that patients possess documents, an address, a telephone, clean clothing, and the ability to return for follow-up appointments. People experiencing homelessness may have none of these.

The Almost Absent Psychological Safety Net

The health crisis identified by the study is not limited to the body.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents reported mental health problems, including anxiety, depression, or other conditions. Yet 77 percent had received no professional psychological assistance or counseling during the previous year.

Internally displaced people, veterans, former prisoners, people with disabilities, and those who have suddenly lost homes through war may be living with multiple forms of trauma.

They may have survived bombing, occupation, bereavement, forced migration, violence, imprisonment, or the destruction of their community. Homelessness then adds a new layer of stress: fear of assault, theft, rejection, illness, hunger, and uncertainty about where the next night will be spent.

Psychological distress can reduce a person’s ability to complete bureaucratic procedures, maintain employment, trust service providers, or plan beyond immediate survival. At the same time, institutions may interpret confusion, withdrawal, anger, or missed appointments as evidence that the person is unwilling to cooperate.

This can create another cycle:

Trauma makes accessing help more difficult, and repeated failure to obtain help deepens trauma and distrust.

Psychological support should therefore not be treated as an optional service to be offered only after housing and documents have been resolved. It can be essential to making those other steps possible.

When a Person Exists but the System Cannot See Them

One-third of the people surveyed reported problems obtaining essential documents.

Difficulties with a national identity document were reported by 37 percent, and the same percentage had problems with their individual tax identification number. Nineteen percent reported difficulty obtaining a pension certificate, while 13 percent had problems with documentation confirming internally displaced person status.

Older adults living alone and people with disabilities were especially likely to face these problems. Among displaced respondents, one-third reported difficulty with their IDP certificates.

A document may appear to be a simple piece of paper or a record in a database. In practice, however, it can determine whether a person can:

• register with a doctor;
• receive medical treatment;
• obtain a pension or social benefit;
• enter formal employment;
• use banking services;
• confirm disability or displaced status;
• rent housing or join a social housing program.

Without documentation, a person may be physically present in a community yet remain almost administratively invisible.

Experts interviewed for the report identified missing identity documents as one of the most significant objective barriers to reintegration. They explained that restoring documents is closely connected with recovering access to health care, employment services, pensions, and other basic forms of support.

More Than a Lost Passport

Some documentation cases can be resolved relatively quickly. Others become extraordinarily complicated.

A person may have lost documents while fleeing an occupied town. Records may have been destroyed or left in territory that Ukrainian institutions cannot access. Witnesses who could confirm the person’s residence may have died, moved abroad, or become unreachable.

Experts also described cases involving people who never obtained a Ukrainian passport after the collapse of the Soviet Union or who were living in another former Soviet republic at that time.

To establish Ukrainian citizenship, they may need to prove where they lived more than three decades ago. But diplomatic relations, archives, and administrative cooperation may no longer be available. Court proceedings can continue for years.

One expert described cases that remained unresolved for five or six years because authorities had no practical mechanism to confirm or exclude an individual’s citizenship.

During that time, the person continues to age. Health worsens. Employment remains informal or inaccessible. Benefits cannot be obtained. Permanent housing becomes even more distant.

The problem is no longer merely “missing paperwork.” It is a legal identity crisis with consequences for every part of life.

The Bureaucratic Catch-22

The report exposes a particularly unjust contradiction.

A person may need medical care, social assistance, or income in order to become stable enough to restore documents. Yet the system may require restored documents before providing medical care, social assistance, or income.

This is a classic bureaucratic trap:

No documents means no services. No services means little chance of recovering the documents.

The difficulty is intensified by the number of steps involved. A person may need photographs, administrative fees, copies of records, legal representation, transportation, a registered address, or confirmation from other institutions.

Someone living without secure housing may not know where to begin. Letters cannot reliably be received. Appointments are missed because transportation is unavailable. Papers become wet, damaged, lost, or stolen.

The survey found that theft of belongings was the most common form of victimization reported by people experiencing homelessness, affecting 38 percent during the previous year. Documents carried in a bag or coat may disappear along with everything else a person owns.

Replacing them then begins the cycle again.

Institutional Stigma Adds Another Barrier

Documents are not the only obstacles people encounter at hospitals and government offices.

Experts reported that some homeless people are refused assistance, treated as a low priority, or discouraged from continuing with an application because of their appearance, odor, or difficulty understanding bureaucratic language.

A person who has not had access to a shower or clean clothing may be judged as careless or uncooperative. Someone who does not understand administrative terminology may be spoken to impatiently. A person struggling with anxiety, cognitive difficulties, or trauma may be unable to explain a complicated history in the form officials expect.

The institution then sees the behavior but not the circumstances that produced it.

This is why social workers and charitable organizations often become intermediaries. They explain procedures, accompany people to appointments, speak with officials, gather evidence, and help ensure that the person is not turned away at the first obstacle.

Such accompaniment is not simply emotional support. It can be the practical difference between receiving a passport, pension, medical examination, or denial.

The report’s experts emphasize that stigma can reduce motivation to continue confronting bureaucracy. Repeated humiliation teaches people to expect rejection. Eventually, they may stop asking for services altogether.

Shelters Are Becoming Care Facilities

Experts interviewed for the research observed that people arriving at service centers increasingly need more than food and a bed.

Some require substantial medical care, rehabilitation, assistance with daily activities, or palliative support. Yet homelessness facilities often lack the staff, equipment, and accessible infrastructure necessary to provide this level of care.

A general shelter may not have nurses on duty. Staff members may have no medical training. Bathrooms may not accommodate wheelchairs. Residents recovering from hospital treatment may need a quiet room, specialized diet, medication management, or regular monitoring that the facility cannot provide.

This places organizations in an impossible position. They cannot safely meet every medical need, but discharging the person may mean sending someone seriously ill back to the street.

Hospitals, in turn, may release patients who have no appropriate place to recover. The broader ETHOS framework recognizes people leaving institutions without housing as being at risk of homelessness, yet the study was unable to survey this group directly.

The transition between hospital and shelter must therefore be treated as a critical moment. No one should be discharged from medical care into conditions that are likely to reverse treatment or place life at risk.

War Makes Every Part of the Trap Stronger

The full-scale invasion has intensified each link between homelessness, health, and documentation.

Homes containing passports, medical histories, and legal records have been destroyed. People have fled without time to collect medication or papers. Local government offices and health facilities have been damaged or displaced. Archives may remain in occupied territories.

War injuries and psychological trauma have increased medical needs. At the same time, health systems are under extraordinary pressure from military and civilian casualties.

Displaced people must navigate unfamiliar services in new communities. Veterans may return with physical injuries or post-traumatic symptoms while also facing family conflict, unemployment, or housing loss. Older adults separated from relatives may have no one to assist with medical visits or administrative procedures.

Organizations working with people experiencing homelessness must therefore respond to more serious and complicated needs with resources that were already limited before the invasion.

What may once have been a difficult administrative process can become almost impossible during war.

Services Must Begin Before the Documents Are Restored

One of the report’s clearest recommendations is that access to essential services should not be postponed until documentation has been fully restored.

It proposes legal and regulatory changes allowing people experiencing homelessness to receive social and medical services while the process of recovering their documents is still underway.

This principle is crucial.

A person with pneumonia cannot wait months for a passport. Someone with severe depression should not be denied counseling because a document is missing. An older adult should not remain without medication or income while citizenship records are examined in court.

Documentation is necessary for an organized public system. But it should serve the person rather than become a condition for recognizing that person’s humanity.

Practical solutions could include coordinated case management, temporary identification mechanisms, legal assistance within shelters, mobile medical services, cooperation between hospitals and homelessness organizations, and designated officials trained to handle complex cases.

Accessible accommodation is also essential. People with reduced mobility need shelters and permanent housing where they can move safely and receive appropriate care.

Accompaniment Through the Maze

The report describes reintegration as a process that includes establishing trust, identifying individual needs, restoring documents, arranging benefits, accessing treatment, finding employment, and securing permanent housing.

These steps cannot always be completed in a fixed order. They often need to happen simultaneously.

A social worker may begin a passport application while also arranging emergency medical treatment. A psychologist may help someone regain enough confidence to attend government appointments. A legal adviser may resolve citizenship questions while a shelter provides stability and a housing worker searches for permanent accommodation.

This integrated approach recognizes that people rarely experience only one problem.

Depaul Ukraine provides temporary shelter, legal support, psychosocial services, and longer-term housing assistance. Its model reflects the need to connect immediate care with the administrative and social work required to escape homelessness.

Replacing a passport may look like a technical task. In reality, it can reopen access to a person’s rights, history, income, health care, and place within society.

The Person Must Come Before the Paper

For the Vincentian Family, this part of the report touches a central conviction: a person’s dignity does not depend on possessing the correct documents, appearing presentable, or understanding the language of bureaucracy.

Vincentian service has always moved toward people whom institutions overlook. It combines immediate assistance with patient accompaniment—remaining beside someone through processes that may be slow, frustrating, and complex.

That accompaniment is particularly important when illness and missing documents reinforce one another.

A meal may sustain someone for a day. A shelter bed may provide safety for a night. Medical care may relieve pain. Legal support may recover an identity document. Permanent housing may finally create the stability in which all these efforts can endure.

None of these responses should stand alone.

A person should not have to become healthy before receiving housing, obtain every document before receiving treatment, or navigate an impossible system without someone beside them.

Breaking the trap requires institutions willing to coordinate, laws flexible enough to protect people during documentation processes, and communities that see the human being before the file.

In wartime Ukraine, restoring health and restoring legal identity are not secondary details in the response to homelessness. They are essential steps toward returning a person to safety, autonomy, and a place of belonging.

Image © DePaul Group.