Gaborone

Gaborone is Botswana's capital and largest city, a fast-growing, relatively orderly place with modern government buildings, shopping malls, and a diplomatic quarter, but also plenty of quiet residential areas and open land where the city's growth hasn't caught up with its infrastructure. Life here can be expensive for a city this size — Statistics Botswana's household surveys put average monthly household income in urban areas like Gaborone at roughly BWP 6,000, and that gap between income and cost of living is part of why some people end up without stable housing. A 2019 government report on urban poverty estimated close to 400 people, including a number of children, sleeping rough or in unstable shelter situations across Gaborone, a number that locals who work in outreach say has likely grown since then. The Salvation Army runs feeding programs and short-term shelter support in the city, the Botswana Council of Churches coordinates social welfare assistance through member churches, and the Kagisano Society Women's Shelter Project offers refuge and support, particularly for women and children in crisis. These groups won't solve everything, but they know the streets, they know where a meal or a bed can be found on a given night, and they're worth seeking out before you need them urgently. Gaborone can be hard on people with nowhere to go, but you are not invisible here, and there are hands willing to help you get through tonight and the next one.