Nairobi, Kenya — Poverty, displacement, and a chronic shortage of affordable housing are pushing thousands of Nairobi residents onto the streets, exposing families to hunger, violence and harsh weather as the capital grapples with a deepening homelessness crisis.
“I have been living on the streets for 10 years and there are many challenges,” said Joyce Muthoni, a mother of three who became homeless after losing her job. “It gets very cold at night, most of the time we are hungry, the kids are crying. As if that is not enough the police usually beat us at night.”
Kenya’s last national headcount of street families in 2018 recorded 46,639 people living without shelter. The World Bank estimates that 39.8% of Kenyans live below the national poverty line, leaving many with few options beyond informal settlements that lack basic services.
In Kibera—often described as Africa’s largest urban slum—22-year-old Jane Caren Knight pays KSh2,000 (about $17) a month for a leaking mud-walled room she shares with her one-year-old child. Without steady work, she says she is at constant risk of eviction. “The landlord does not care and is very harsh with rent. If he says rent is due on the 5th and you fail to pay on time, he locks the door or even throws out your stuff.”
Housing advocates say the situation is the result of long-standing structural gaps—too few low-cost homes, weak tenant protections, and limited social safety nets. Kenya faces a housing deficit of around two million units, according to the World Bank, a shortfall that fuels overcrowding and keeps rents out of reach for low-income families.
The government has touted its Affordable Housing Programme (AHP), which aims to build more than 100,000 homes nationwide, as a key part of the response. “This could be done through social housing programmes whereby the costs are highly subsidised to enable these people to buy into the houses,” said George Omondi, Director of Housing and Infrastructure at the State Department of Housing and Urban Development, who called for coordinated action across agencies.
President William Ruto last month proposed a multilateral coalition to confront what he called a global housing crisis. “The global housing crisis is too vast for any single country to resolve. We must therefore harness the power of multilateralism to confront it,” he said.
But for those on Nairobi’s pavements, relief cannot come soon enough. “We are living like refugees in our own country,” Muthoni said. “If we can be helped to get jobs we will be able to raise our children and even get off the streets.”
