Over 300 Million Homeless Worldwide, and Macedonia Doesn't Know How Many It Has: No Definition, No Records

On 10 October the world marked World Homeless Day, with numbers that are hard to even picture. According to UN Development Programme estimates published in May 2026, more than 300 million people worldwide are homeless, and almost three billion live in inadequate conditions. And how many homeless people are there in Macedonia? Nobody knows - not even the state.

This is no exaggeration. The country has no proper system for registering and recording homeless people. A regional review of how social rights are implemented also points to the lack of a clear legal definition and classification, to inadequate mapping, and to the fact that hidden homelessness isn't recognised in official data at all. In other words, a person can have nowhere to sleep and never show up in a single statistic.

An estimate instead of a count

For Skopje there are only estimates. According to a 2022 Red Cross report, around 500 people in the capital were without a home. That's an estimate, not a count - and anyone quoting it as current in 2026 is quoting a four-year-old figure.

Help does exist. The "Momin Potok" centre has been running since 2008, offering food, clothing, medical check-ups and a place to rest, and the Red Cross also provides psychosocial support. That's the work of people who see the homeless every single day. The institutions, by contrast, don't yet even know how many there are.

More than a park bench

A homeless person isn't only someone sleeping on a bench. It's also someone living in a temporary shelter, constantly moving from place to place, depending on other people's hospitality, or living somewhere that doesn't meet basic standards. Losing a job, poverty, domestic violence, illness, debt and rising rents can slowly push a person out of a stable home.

You can't solve a problem you haven't even counted. If the responsible ministry genuinely wants to help, the first step is a law that says who counts as homeless, and a register that finally counts them. How many more winters will pass before that becomes a priority?