Kumasi

Kumasi is Ghana's second-largest city, a sprawling, energetic hub built around the great Kejetia Market, where trading, kente cloth, and Ashanti tradition shape daily life more than any skyline ever could. It's a city that moves fast but still holds onto community ties, and that matters if you're trying to survive on its streets. Average household income in the Ashanti Region has hovered around GHS 900 to 1,200 per month in recent national living standards surveys, though most people scraping by in Kumasi's informal economy earn far less than that. Ghana doesn't publish a precise homeless count for Kumasi specifically, but a 2021 Ghana Statistical Service survey estimated over 8,000 people living without stable shelter in Greater Kumasi and its surrounding districts, a number that's almost certainly higher now given rising costs. The Salvation Army Ghana runs shelter and outreach programs in the Ashanti Region, and the Kumasi-based Street Girls Aid works specifically with young women and children living rough, while the Catholic Diocese of Kumasi's charity arm has long offered food and basic aid to those without a home. If you're new to sleeping rough here, the areas around Adum and Bantama tend to have more informal support networks and cheaper food vendors who won't turn you away. You're not invisible here, even when it feels that way — people in this city have survived worse and found their footing again, and so can you.