Houseless Population UPSC relevant
Houseless households are those that do not live in buildings or census houses but in the open — on roadsides and pavements, in hume pipes, under flyovers and staircases, in places of worship, mandaps or on railway platforms.
The census enumerates the houseless population as a true de facto count on a single designated night; in Census 2011 this was the night of February 28, 2011, the last night of the enumeration period, so that mobile homeless people are counted exactly once. Houseless households cannot use Census 2027's self-enumeration facility and depend entirely on enumerator outreach, which makes this one of the hardest-to-count groups.
The 2027 count (expected around the March 1, 2027 census moment) will produce India's first update of homelessness data since 2011.