Homelessness in Israel

Israeli social-welfare policy distinguishes between "street dwellers" and people who are homeless or lack housing in a broader sense. Social-work regulations governing street-dweller policy were first published in 1996 and had been updated three times by 2011.[1] The formal category applies to adults over 18 who live on the street or in places such as abandoned buildings, gardens, public areas, or construction sites, experience physical or mental neglect, are generally estranged from supportive family, and have serious difficulty maintaining an ordinary way of life.[2][3]

The definition excludes several groups commonly understood as experiencing homelessness, including minors, released prisoners without housing, people evicted because they cannot pay rent or a mortgage, and people removed from their homes by court order in domestic-violence cases.[2] Recognition also generally depends on approaching a local municipality, leaving some people who do not or cannot engage with services outside official totals.[2]

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel argued that the distinction between "street dwellers" and the broader homeless population should be abandoned in favor of a definition based on housing circumstances. Its representative contended that focusing on people at the most extreme end of homelessness excluded other precariously housed people from official figures.[3] An academic study of policy between 1991 and 2011 similarly concluded that the system was constructed for a small subgroup of the homeless population by framing the problem as one of "street dwellers."[1]

Broader forms of housing insecurity — including residence in shelters, unauthorized housing, temporary arrangements with other people, and other situations short of sleeping in public — may therefore fall outside street-dweller totals.[3][4]

Formal policy on street dwellers in Israel dates to the early 1990s and the initial years of the Street Dwellers Unit in Tel Aviv–Yafo. Social-work regulations were first published in 1996 and updated three times during the period studied. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services became the lead ministry, with the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the National Insurance Institute also participating.[1]

The leading policy idea was rehabilitation rather than housing provision alone.[1] A 2018 government report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stated that 1,267 people defined as street dwellers by local social-services departments received a monthly allowance during 2016, while the street-dweller program assisted 1,800 people annually. The report cautioned that the allowance figure did not necessarily represent the total homeless population because some people might not have been identified by social services.[5]

The resulting service system combines municipal treatment units, temporary overnight shelters, residential rehabilitation frameworks, rental assistance, and income-support benefits. Reports on the system have repeatedly emphasized that not all planned services operate in practice and that available places reach only part of the recognized population.[6]

In 2020, Welfare Ministry treatment units operated in 16 cities with about 1,430 funded monthly places, expanding to 19 cities in 2021. Temporary overnight shelters known as gagonim operated in seven cities with about 180 funded beds. Across the funded overnight frameworks, approximately 520 beds were available in 2020, enough to accommodate at most about 27 to 33 percent of people with an active street-dwelling case in any given month.[6] By September 2026, the Welfare Ministry described approximately 20 rehabilitation frameworks and gagonim providing services or temporary shelter.[7]

Recognized street dwellers participating in rehabilitation could qualify for rental assistance from the Ministry of Construction and Housing. In 2020, about 1,150 people received assistance throughout the year and about 1,730 received it for at least one month. The assistance was described as very low relative to average rent, and eligible people were assessed as not fully taking up their rights. There was no dedicated public-housing eligibility track for street dwellers.[6]

A recognized street dweller aged 18 or older who meets statutory conditions may receive income support without reporting to the employment service, subject to monthly reporting by a social worker. In 2020, 968 different people received this benefit. From January 2022, the monthly rates were NIS 1,697 for a nonworking single person up to age 54 and NIS 2,148 for a single person aged 55 to retirement age.[6]

Government spending on street-dweller services was reported at approximately NIS 28.5 million in 2020, including additional pandemic-related expenditure.[2] A 2021 Globes commentary described nonprofits providing street outreach, meals, clean clothing, clean syringes, referrals, and mental-health support, while warning that disconnected assistance from multiple organizations could undermine continuity of care.[4]

In Tel Aviv's Neve Sha'anan neighborhood, a street-medicine team run by the nonprofit Marpe LaRechov had worked for more than four years, bringing basic medical and social supplies directly to people on the street and seeking to build trust and connect patients with the health-care system.[7] A physician working with the team said patients often reached hospitals only in very serious condition because of distrust, prior dismissive treatment, and difficulty adapting to clinical settings. Severe infections, HIV, and tuberculosis were among the conditions encountered, although the report provided no prevalence figures.[7]

A pilot involving the Ministry of Justice legal-aid service, the Enforcement and Collection Authority, and the nonprofit Migrash Bayit was launched in the Tel Aviv district to help street dwellers resolve debts through an adapted process; 113 cases had been opened since the pilot began.[8] Tel Aviv–Yafo's municipal street-dweller unit operated year-round with proactive field visits, four temporary-shelter frameworks organized by gender and addiction status, an outpost in Neve Sha'anan, on-call coverage, and eight transitional apartments. The city treated 1,227 street dwellers during 2024.[9]

Reliable national figures for homelessness in Israel have been difficult to establish, and different data systems have produced substantially different numbers. Welfare Ministry records listed about 2,000 different people with an active street-dwelling case during 2019 and about 2,250 between January and November 2020.[6] A separate collection from 89 municipal social-services departments found that approximately 3,470 street dwellers were treated during 2020. About 29 percent had received short-term treatment that was not reported or had been treated without being registered as street dwellers.[6]

Local authorities also reported about 800 people living on the street who were not receiving treatment: 345 were unwilling or unmotivated to accept services, while approximately 455 were not formally known to services even though authorities knew or believed they were in their areas.[6] The differences between ministry files and municipal reporting illustrate that the systems measure different forms of contact and do not capture everyone who would commonly be considered homeless.[2][6]

In 2017, a representative of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel cited a Welfare Ministry figure of about 3,000 street dwellers, mainly in large cities.[3] A 2021 Globes commentary stated that welfare authorities had estimated more than 3,000 homeless people before the COVID-19 pandemic, of whom 1,800 were receiving services, while nonprofit estimates approached 6,000. The gap was attributed partly to a narrow administrative definition that excluded groups such as minors expelled from home, released prisoners without housing, families displaced by debt, discharged soldiers, and women engaged in prostitution.[4]

Later reports used different dates and measures. The Jerusalem Post cited approximately 3,500 officially recognized street dwellers, including about 1,500 in Tel Aviv and around 300 in Jerusalem, alongside an OECD figure of 3,900 homeless individuals for 2024.[2] In September 2026, the Welfare Ministry recognized about 4,000 street dwellers receiving state welfare services and estimated that several hundred more were unknown to local authorities, producing an estimate of about 4,500. The ministry also said the number recognized had been rising by about 8 percent per year.[7] These figures should not be treated as a directly comparable time series because they refer to different reporting systems, populations, and periods.

Among people with an active street-dwelling case between January and November 2020, approximately 86 percent were men and about 67 percent were aged 26 to 55. The Welfare Ministry estimated that 37 people living on the street died during 2020.[6]

A 2014 mapping study prepared for the Welfare Ministry by Yoav Santo and Moshe Berger found that 86 percent of the street dwellers surveyed were men, with ages ranging from 19 to 77; most did not reach age 50.[3] Nearly 70 percent of those living in public places had not been born in Israel, almost two-thirds had a history of alcohol or drug addiction, and half had previously been sentenced to prison. Many also had mental illnesses.[3] These findings describe the street-dweller population surveyed at that time and are not a current profile of everyone experiencing homelessness.

The NGO Elem reported that homeless youth increased by 50 percent during the first three months of the COVID-19 outbreak compared with the same period in 2019, although the figure was not accompanied by a national total for youth homelessness.[10]

A distinct dimension of homelessness in Israel involves asylum seekers and irregular migrants, who face different legal and social circumstances from the general homeless population. As of September 2018, approximately 34,370 irregular migrants and asylum seekers were in Israel, nearly all from Eritrea or Sudan.[11] Most did not receive public social benefits. The few recognized refugees received social services, while public housing, income assistance, and free health insurance generally were not provided to vulnerable asylum seekers, including children, single parents, people with chronic illnesses, and people with disabilities.[11]

A wage-deposit policy required employers to withhold 20 percent of an irregular migrant's wages and contribute another 16 percent to a fund accessible to the worker upon leaving Israel, with penalties deductible for remaining without a visa.[11] ASSAF, an organization supporting refugees and asylum seekers, reported significant increases in homelessness, mental-health concerns, and requests for food assistance after the policy was implemented, although it supplied no numerical count of the increase.[12] Government officials and NGOs also reported that some Eritrean women entered prostitution or survival-sex arrangements in which shelter was exchanged for sex.[12]

Israel's Supreme Court subsequently struck down the 20-percent salary deduction as unconstitutional, describing it as a violation of the property rights of a low-paid population with limited means. The court ordered the deducted amounts returned; by December 2020, 14,473 asylum seekers had received refunds totaling NIS 210.5 million, while 3,445 had not yet applied. The employer-funded 16-percent deposit remained in place.[10]

On December 9, 2019, the Ministry of Welfare instructed local authorities to treat homeless asylum seekers, asylum seekers who had experienced domestic violence, and those with disabilities while health-insurance arrangements were being regularized; those arrangements had not been resolved by year's end.[12] The 2022 and 2023 State Department reports stated that homeless asylum seekers were eligible for limited social services but did not always receive them, and that most asylum seekers needing welfare and social services relied on aid organizations rather than government provision.[13][14] After the conflict began on October 7, 2023, many asylum seekers lost jobs and were not eligible for unemployment benefits or income-support allowances.[14]

Asylum seekers released from the Holot detention facility were prohibited from residing in Eilat and Tel Aviv, with residency restrictions later extended to Jerusalem, Petah Tikva, Netanya, Ashdod, and Bnei Brak.[11]

Several programs and organizations have addressed housing insecurity among specific vulnerable populations in Israel, distinct from street-dweller services. Amigour, operating under the Jewish Agency, provides affordable and sheltered housing principally for elderly people — including Holocaust survivors — as well as new immigrants and single-parent families.[15] It operates 57 complexes housing 7,500 elderly residents, and since 1972 has provided more than 60,000 housing solutions for new immigrants and disadvantaged citizens.[15]

In the early 2000s, community organizations worked to prevent housing loss among low-income households. Yedid: The Association for Community Empowerment operated in 12 towns across Israel, helping low-income people access rights including food and shelter. Donors working through the organization helped prevent 10 families from losing their homes after banks issued foreclosure notices.[16] Pitchon Lev provided food to welfare institutions and shelters for battered women and children, delivering 5,500 food parcels a month and serving more than 140,000 needy individuals a year, although these figures were not limited to homeless people.[16]

A 2003 article stated that people who had ever owned a home were then ineligible for public-housing assistance. This is a historical observation from that period and should not be treated as a description of current eligibility rules without newer verification.[16]

The narrow administrative definition of "street dweller" has been a persistent source of dispute. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel argued that the distinction between street dwellers and the broader homeless population should be abandoned in favor of a definition based on housing circumstances, contending that the current approach leaves people living in shelters, unauthorized housing, and other precarious arrangements outside official figures.[3] Some municipalities reportedly avoided opening dedicated services because of political pressure or concern that an official facility would attract more people to the area.[3]

Discrepancies between ministry administrative data, municipal treatment records, and broader nonprofit estimates have been presented as evidence of genuine uncertainty about the population's size.[6] Official recognition generally requires a person to approach a local municipality, meaning that people who do not engage with services may remain absent from official tallies.[2]

The reported association between the wage-deposit law and increased homelessness among asylum seekers rests on ASSAF's reporting and was not accompanied by a numerical count; the sources reviewed did not independently establish the magnitude of any causal effect.[12][11] The scope of government social-service obligations to asylum seekers and irregular migrants also remains legally and politically contested.[13][14]