Lost among the shadows: Homeless and alone in Pakistan

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Dr. Farrukh A. Chishtie

Loneliness and homelessness ere largely increasing across the globe, with Pakistan being no exception. We have to address this issue of equity and public health in a meaningful manner. 

Late at night in Lahore’s empty railway siding, a former factory worker named Amir sits wrapped in a thin shawl, watching distant headlights slide past the city’s glow. Until six months ago, he enjoyed steady work on the assembly line, a modest rented room, and festive trips home. Then his factory shut, the rent piled up, and his friends stopped calling. Now he is not only homeless but quietly disconnected — living among strangers without belonging, identity, or purpose. His story is not merely about rooflessness — it is about occupational insecurity, social isolation, and the hidden epidemic of loneliness that haunts millions in Pakistan.

In a world where labour is increasingly informal, work insecure, and housing commodified, the dynamics of neoliberal capitalism sharpen divisions. The promise of self‑reliance becomes a trap when safety nets vanish, and communities dissolve into atomised individuals competing for scarce opportunities. The shift from collective livelihoods to market‑defined value marginalises those who cannot “perform” as entrepreneurs, leaving behind people like Amir in the shadows of growth.

Internationally, governments are beginning to recognise loneliness as a public‑health crisis. In the UK, for example, the appointment of a dedicated “Minister for Loneliness” signalled the arrival of policy responses to isolation across ages and classes. But in Pakistan such institutional recognition is absent. Here, the twin spectres of homelessness and loneliness are overlooked, partly because the narrative remains individualised: lack = personal failure, not structural breakdown.

As we prepare to explore the causes and solutions in the pages ahead, one critical truth stands out: housing and employment alone will not end homelessness. We must also rekindle belonging, connection, and occupational security — the assurance of stable work, meaningful participation and community membership. For Amir and tens of thousands like him, the hardest piece to reclaim may be their place in a world that has turned counting profit into the only measure of human worth.

Unravelling belonging: When occupation, identity and home collide

In the increasingly market-driven urban landscape of Pakistan’s largest cities, the problem of homelessness is not just one of shelter — it is a slow unraveling of the fabric that holds individuals to their identities and communities. What is at stake is not just where people sleep, but whether they feel rooted in any social, economic, or emotional sense of place. It is here that the concept of occupational security, as defined, becomes essential. This framework argues that beyond access to jobs or services, true safety and stability emerge from a person’s ability to participate in meaningful and culturally embedded occupations — those daily activities that define belonging, dignity, and worth.

For Pakistan’s urban poor — particularly street vendors, sanitation workers, transgender individuals, displaced rural migrants, and the disabled — this security is being stripped away by a neoliberal development model that prioritizes commercial land use over human lives. The occupation of a vendor, for example, is not just a livelihood; it is a structured routine, a social space, and a form of autonomy. Yet these informal roles are criminalized under beautification schemes or gentrification projects pushed forward by elite urban planning frameworks imported wholesale from the Global North.

This erosion is neither accidental nor new. The seeds were sown during the colonial period, when urban designs in Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi deliberately segregated labouring classes from colonial elites. The physical distance from “civilized” centres of administration extended to a distancing from institutional protections, education, and infrastructural investments. Post-independence, rather than rethinking these legacies, Pakistan’s developmental logic often doubled down on the colonial script — with concrete flyovers replacing green spaces, and gated societies replacing interdependent communities.

The consequence is profound: modern homelessness is not just a housing issue, but a multidimensional crisis of relational, occupational, and ecological disconnection. People are severed from land, from kin, from opportunities for meaningful work, and even from the basic right to breathe clean air. This is where the Occupational Security Framework offers a valuable corrective: it re-centres human dignity through the lens of meaningful occupation, which includes cultural, familial, spiritual, and ecological dimensions.

But this framework also calls out how neoliberalism exploits and fragments occupations. For instance, ride-hailing app workers in cities like Islamabad or Lahore are technically “self-employed,” yet their schedules are dictated by opaque algorithms, their incomes fluctuate wildly, and they remain ineligible for labour protections. Women who work from home on piece-rate tasks for export industries are similarly excluded from public statistics and labour debates, even though they bear the full emotional and physical burden of production.

In such environments, the question is not only “who is homeless,” but “who has the right to build a home in their own way, and with what kind of work?” Who gets to feel safe, visible, and heard in their daily life? These are not abstract questions — they determine whose stories are told, whose memories are preserved, and whose bodies are policed.

As we move forward, policymakers, urban planners, civil society, and medical professionals must begin by asking: what does it mean to feel at home? What makes life liveable? And who gets to decide that? The answers lie not in architectural models or economic projections, but in rehumanizing the lives of those society have left behind.

Fragmented lives: The role of neoliberalism in deepening loneliness and homelessness

In understanding the contemporary crises of loneliness and homelessness in Pakistan, we must not isolate them from the wider global economic ideologies that have shaped our society — namely neoliberalism and unchecked capitalism. These forces, often marketed under the banners of modernization and economic freedom, have systematically eroded the community-based safety nets and interdependent social structures that once formed the backbone of Pakistani society.

Disintegration of the commons

Neoliberal policies advocate for individual self-sufficiency, privatization, and deregulation. In urban Pakistan, these policies manifest in the aggressive privatization of land, healthcare, and education. Communal spaces such as parks, libraries, and neighborhood centers have either disappeared or have become commercialized. In their place, gated housing societies, shopping malls, and security walls proliferate—symbolizing safety for some but deepening exclusion for others. These environments generate conditions where social trust, spontaneous interaction, and communal care wither. As the commons disappear, so do the collective rituals and informal support systems that held communities together.

The UK’s Ministry of Loneliness, established in 2018, was a radical recognition of this growing epidemic. It acknowledged that loneliness was not just a matter of personal misfortune but one shaped by the structural alienation baked into modern societies. Its emergence was, in many ways, an admission that decades of neoliberal reforms had inadvertently (or perhaps predictably) engineered a crisis of belonging. For Pakistan, where similar patterns are unfolding, this provides a powerful policy lesson: the battle against loneliness must be framed not just as a mental health issue, but as a societal and governance challenge.

Occupational alienation

The occupational structure in Pakistan has undergone seismic shifts in recent decades. Informal gig work, day labor, and underemployment dominate vast swathes of the economy. These unstable jobs often lack dignity, security, and any sense of communal contribution. As your occupational security framework articulates, a secure occupation is not merely a source of income — it is a site of identity, relational engagement, and contribution to society.

The erosion of traditional occupations — be they artisanal, agricultural, or caregiving —has left many individuals, particularly young people, stranded in liminal spaces where neither stable work nor communal recognition exists. They are alienated from both the means of livelihood and the relational grounding that occupations once provided. Women in particular face acute occupational exclusion when they are neither formally employed nor meaningfully integrated into decision-making in household or community spheres. In both rural and urban settings, this occupational fragmentation contributes to silent, chronic loneliness that rarely finds expression in public discourse.

Precarity and the rise of homelessness

With economic precarity increasing and rental prices soaring in cities like Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad, homelessness is no longer confined to “the mentally ill” or “drug addicts” — common stereotypes that dehumanize. It increasingly affects migrant workers, flood-displaced individuals, the elderly, and victims of domestic violence. Many are functionally homeless sleeping in vehicles, mosques, under bridges, or moving between friends and relatives.

These groups face a double exclusion: physical from stable shelter and emotional from society’s care. Unlike the older extended family networks that offered fallback options in crisis, today’s family structures, burdened by economic stress and migration, are often unable or unwilling to absorb additional dependents. With limited or no access to housing rights, shelters, or mental health support, this invisible population is growing rapidly.

Community-based resistance and possibility

Yet within this crisis lie seeds of hope. Across Pakistan, small mutual aid networks, community kitchens, and urban farming collectives are reclaiming the idea of communal interdependence. Some organizations offer not just shelter but community-building, therapy, skill development, and pathways to reintegration. These efforts align with your occupational security framework by not merely addressing symptoms but by re-imagining what it means to live and contribute meaningfully in society.

To move forward, Pakistan must adopt a holistic response. This includes not only urgent investments in housing and healthcare but also bold structural reforms—tax incentives for cooperative housing, rehabilitation of public spaces, occupational protections for informal workers, and education reform to teach empathy and civic care from early schooling.

In the pages to come, we examine these possible pathways, spotlight successful models from both Pakistan and abroad, and lay out a vision for how loneliness and homelessness can be addressed not as isolated crises, but as symptoms of deeper ruptures — and opportunities for systemic healing.

Fragmented communities: How capitalism erodes connection

The isolation experienced by the homeless and lonely in Pakistan today cannot be separated from the broader economic model under which we live. Neoliberal capitalism, with its emphasis on individualism, competition, and profit over people, has systematically dismantled traditional structures of support and care. Extended families, once the norm, are shrinking under the pressure of rising urban housing costs and job market precarity. People are forced to move far from home to earn a living, severing ties with the very communities that once offered emotional and social refuge.

This alienation is not just a social side-effect — it is structural. Capitalist urban planning prioritizes malls over parks, gated communities over inclusive neighborhoods, and cars over walkability. The poor are pushed to the margins, both physically and metaphorically. In Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad, upscale developments mushroom while informal settlements are razed in the name of development, displacing thousands without offering adequate alternatives. In this context, homelessness becomes not a personal failure, but a policy-induced outcome.

Neoliberal policies also strip away state responsibility. Health care, housing, and even education are privatized, leaving only the market to decide who is deserving of dignity. If one cannot afford rent, medicine, or therapy — they simply fall through the cracks. Loneliness is thus not a mere emotion, but a symptom of systemic neglect.

The Occupational Security framework, as developed by myself, offers a necessary intervention here. It recognizes that security is not just about shelter or wages but also about valued social roles, identity, and opportunities to participate meaningfully in society. A person living in a street tent may not just need food or income, but also the chance to garden, to learn, to mentor — to be recognized as someone who still has a contribution to make. Current systems do not just deny material access — they deny personhood.

Looking globally, Japan’s "Kodokushi" (lonely death) phenomenon, where elderly citizens die alone and are found days or weeks later, is a haunting reminder of where hyper-individualistic societies can lead. Meanwhile, Iceland’s success in reducing teenage loneliness through investment in community-led recreational programs shows the opposite: that building connection requires public investment, not just private initiative.

It is time to reject the false dichotomy between economic progress and social cohesion. What Pakistan needs is people-centered planning — one that fosters solidarity, interdependence, and dignity. A future worth striving for is one in which no one is left to suffer silently, unseen on a park bench, or behind the gated silence of a high-rise apartment.

Cultural norms, social exclusion, and urban alienation

In exploring the structural causes of loneliness and homelessness in Pakistan, one cannot overlook the role of cultural shifts, urban design, and fragmentation of social life under contemporary capitalism. While traditionally, extended families and communal living offered buffers against extreme social isolation, modernization and globalized consumer culture have dramatically altered these protective structures.

In cities like Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, real estate development has increasingly privileged gated communities and vertical housing that disconnect residents from street-level interaction. Informal networks of tea stalls, corner shops, and community mosques—once sites of daily conversation and emotional exchange—are slowly disappearing due to commercialization and the rise of digital lifestyles. This transformation has created what sociologists call “urban deserts of empathy,” where the built environment no longer facilitates spontaneous social cohesion.

Moreover, social stigma around mental health and poverty further isolates the lonely and the unhoused. Public discourses often blame individuals for their condition, framing them as lazy, deviant, or mentally unstable—rather than addressing systemic failures. This contributes to an invisible class of individuals who are socially present but emotionally erased, especially among women, elderly men, and transgender persons without family support.

Importantly, the neoliberal state’s logic of self-responsibility has also permeated religious and charitable responses. Where once the ethic of collective care (e.g., zakat, waqf, and langar) served as a social equalizer, many charitable models have now become transactional or dependent on visibility, branding, and performance metrics. This reduces empathy to episodic relief rather than structural change.

To reclaim urban spaces and restore social connection, city planning must be infused with human-centered design principles, including inclusive parks, walkable streets, community gardens, and cultural hubs. Equally, local governments need to regulate gentrification and protect the informal urban commons that enable vulnerable populations to survive and connect.

Finally, fostering digital solidarities, such as community WhatsApp groups, storytelling podcasts, and mental health helplines in Urdu and regional languages—can help counter isolation. But these must complement—not replace—physical and structural interventions that treat loneliness and homelessness as public health and human rights issues, not personal failings.

The invisible epidemic — children, youth, and the legacy of social fragmentation

While much of the conversation on loneliness and homelessness centers around adults, a hidden crisis is unfolding among children and youth in Pakistan. These younger generations are growing up in conditions where both social support and physical shelter are increasingly fragile. The rise in urban poverty, family fragmentation, and climate-induced displacement has left thousands of children vulnerable to social exclusion and chronic loneliness, even when not physically homeless.

Child homelessness and street life

According to SPARC (Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child), an estimated 1.5 million children live and work on the streets across major cities like Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. Many are victims of domestic violence, orphaned by conflict or disease, or forced to migrate due to poverty and displacement from rural areas. These children, often invisible to formal institutions, experience severe emotional distress, with little access to mental health support. Loneliness here is not simply emotional — it is existential, cutting them off from education, nutrition, identity, and dignity.

Institutional neglect and school dropouts

Even within homes and schools, many youths report emotional abandonment. High-stakes academic pressure, corporal punishment, bullying, and lack of mental health awareness has led to high dropout rates and alienation. According to a 2023 UNICEF report, almost 23 million Pakistani children are out of school, with girls and children in rural areas most affected. In such a context, school is not a space for connection but another site of exclusion for many.

Technology and the illusion of connection

While smartphone penetration and social media use have grown exponentially among youth, these platforms often replace real human interaction rather than enhance it. A growing body of global literature, including insights from UK and Japanese studies, show that excessive digital interaction correlates with increased feelings of isolation, anxiety, and depression. In Pakistan, where public dialogue around mental health is still nascent, such issues are rarely acknowledged or addressed in schools or media.

Towards holistic solutions: An occupational security approach

The occupational security framework urges us to go beyond shelters or basic education when supporting youth. It calls for access to meaningful roles, safe environments, and developmental opportunities that foster identity, confidence, and belonging. This means investing in safe recreational spaces, mental health programs in schools, youth mentorship initiatives, and protections for child laborers—not merely as welfare, but as a social justice imperative.

Programs such as child parliament forums in India, homeless-youth co-ops in Brazil, and trauma-informed education models in Scandinavian countries offer ideas that could be adapted locally. In Pakistan, pilot programs like Kiran Foundation’s trauma-informed schools in Lyari and Akhtar Hameed Khan Foundation’s community learning hubs provide early glimpses of what occupationally secure childhoods might look like.

Lost connections: Nature, displacement, and the crisis of belonging

The experience of homelessness in Pakistan—whether in sprawling urban centers like Karachi or encampments on the margins of Lahore—is not simply a crisis of brick and mortar. It is a profound dislocation of people from space, security, and increasingly, from nature itself. This alienation from the natural world is a silent and often overlooked aspect of modern homelessness. As urban expansion continues unchecked and development becomes increasingly commercialized, the places where humans and nature once coexisted—urban green spaces, public parks, riversides, and old groves—are rapidly disappearing.

For thousands living on the streets, footpaths, or in makeshift shelters, nature is no longer a refuge—it has been paved over, fenced off, or rendered toxic. In cities like Lahore and Faisalabad, the heat from concrete, pollution from traffic, and degraded air quality leave no room for the soothing shade of trees or clean spaces to breathe. The poor are left to survive in the harshest environments, often without even the basic cooling or shelter that natural ecosystems once provided.

This disconnection is not accidental. It is the legacy of a development model that emerged with colonialism—where forests were logged for profit, rivers canalized for extraction, and common lands enclosed for elites. These patterns intensified under neoliberal governance, where privatization, commercial landscaping, and gated communities physically and symbolically exclude marginalized populations from nature. Today, the idea of nature as a commons—something to be shared, restored, and lived with—has been replaced with a vision of nature as a commodity to be consumed, bought, or accessed only by the privileged.

Reconnecting the unhoused with nature is not a fringe issue—it is central to restoring human dignity. Studies from countries like Finland and Japan show how integrating nature into shelter design and public urban planning can reduce stress, improve mental health, and rebuild a sense of place. In Pakistan, where urban nature is under constant threat, restoring this bond could be revolutionary. It would mean protecting urban forests like Lahore’s Bagh-e-Jinnah from encroachment, expanding green corridors accessible to all, and treating rivers and trees not as obstacles but as cohabitants of our cities.

This restoration is also cultural. Indigenous and rural communities in Pakistan have long nurtured traditions of ecological stewardship, viewing land and water as sacred and communal. Reviving these sensibilities—through occupational security and values-based ecological rehabilitation—offers a powerful counterpoint to urban estrangement. Projects that blend urban permaculture with community housing, or engage the homeless in reforestation and wetland renewal, could become catalysts for healing both people and planet.

The loneliness of modern homelessness is not just social—it is ecological. To overcome it, Pakistan must reinvest in green justice and ecological belonging. That means not only housing people, but rewilding our urban landscapes to welcome all forms of life, human and more-than-human alike.

Pathways out: Housing, work, joint family and community solutions

In confronting the twin crises of homelessness and loneliness, Pakistan cannot rely on temporary fixes alone. The occupational security framework directs attention to three interlinked pillars: safe housing, meaningful occupation, and social belonging. These must be pursued together if the system is to heal. Joint family systems and their recovery can be a sustainable solution to this concern as sharing in our indigenous communities is just what is missing. Communities which have joint family systems are better health wise and social cohesion as compared to divided nuclear families which is again a capitalist version which has systemically failed.

Housing with dignity

Shelter homes such as the Ehsaas Panaah Gah initiative show that Pakistan already has institutional recognition of homelessness. Studies of Lahore’s “Pannah Gahs” (long‑stay shelters) find high user satisfaction when staff treat residents with respect and offer basic services. Yet, shelters often remain short‑term solutions. For lasting impact, Pakistan needs housing models that offer stable tenure: low‑cost rental housing, “Housing First” style programs, upgraded informal settlements, and rental protection laws. Cities should pilot mixed‑income neighbourhoods that integrate formerly homeless households with formal employment opportunities and community spaces.

Secure work and meaningful occupation

Occupational security means not just a job but a role in society. Interventions must focus on integral opportunities for employment, skills training, micro‑enterprise and social roles. For example, former street‑vendors can be supported to form cooperatives, gain legal recognition, and transition into formal value chains. The challenge of neoliberal labour precarity—gig work, casual wages, informal status—must be met by labour protections, social insurance and supportive services. Only then can homelessness be reversed through the resumption of valued activity, not just survival.

Re‑forming community and nature connections

Loneliness must be tackled by creating inclusive public spaces, re‑wilded urban corridors and nature‑based community projects. Across Pakistan, green‑design neighbourhoods can host vegetable gardens, tree‑planting, outdoor community kitchens and social hubs where homeless and housed alike engage. Local authorities should revive commons, open river‑banks and link habitational zones with nature to rebuild belonging. Community‑centred approaches, such as peer‑mentoring in shelters, mobile mental‑health units and local neighbourhood networks, can bridge the loneliness gap—especially when anchored in nature and collective action.

Towards hope: A call to action

As Pakistan stands at the threshold of deep social transformation, the challenges of homelessness and loneliness are not pre‑ordained tragedies. They are systemic symptoms of fractured economies, atomised urban landscapes and shrinking social solidarity. But they also offer a profound opportunity — an invitation to rebuild the country’s social contract around occupational security, ecological belonging and shared humanity.

Imagine a Lahore where former factory workers are rehoused in cooperative housing near urban farms, where retirees mentor youth in craft workshops, where street shelters open into public gardens, and where nature is reclaimed as community ground rather than luxury. Such visions are not utopian—they are demonstrable elsewhere and feasible here with political will. Finland’s "Housing First" approach, the UK’s Ministry for Loneliness initiatives, and Pakistan’s own Pannah Gahs and Ehsaas programmes offer fragments of a new framework.

The responsibility lies with government, civil society and citizens alike. Policymakers must integrate labour, housing and social‑care systems; urban planners must design inclusive, biodiverse cities; communities must open up networks of care and belonging. Each person who regains housing, each worker who gains secure occupation, each lonely individual who finds connection becomes part of the social repair.

In this moment of rupture, we can choose either to deepen division or to build bridges. The path of exclusion leads to more street‑beds, more silent suffering and more lives lost to isolation. The path of integration and unity leads to vibrant neighbourhoods where no one sleeps on the pavement, no worker fears eviction, and no child feels invisible. In Pakistan we must choose the latter.

Let us make homelessness and loneliness no longer invisible. Let us build cities, societies and systems that honour the dignity of every human being, reconnect them to work, nature and community, and offer not just survival, but rather flourishing and thriving.