Thailand's Hidden Crisis of Homeless Foreigners

7 hours ago, placnx said:

Cards that I use have a number to call if a card is lost or stolen, and with some I could call collect. This number also works if there is a problem at an ATM. You have to pass an identity test, of course. Some banks have Thailand on a bad list, so if not notified of travel there in advance, problems at the ATM can happen.

You can NOT call collect from Thailand to USA, Canada and I bet many other countries. No matter what your back side of credit card says.

6 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Many don't want to go home, or don't know how to go home in their mind or forgot where home is.

There are 2,500-4,500 homeless Thais. From the ones I see, most don't have a family or community to look after them. Mental problems are common. Homeless women are particularly at risk, at any age. Some are runaway teenagers, of both sexes.

I'm sorry for what you say especially if true. I see homeless in BKK as well but what I don't understand is how you "see" these people and automatically claim they have no family or even mental health issues? That would be great for you to report or explain.

11 hours ago, wensiensheng said:

It certainly doesn’t add up unless she fell foul of some scam. And since the story doesn’t mention that, I doubt it happened.

She might have been a janitor at a Wall Street office building which would explain why she doesn’t have any savings and also why she wasn’t any good at remote counseling. Just joking.

Her story is either incomplete or she is a total idiot to relocate to another country with basically not a penny to her name.

The numbers quoted in this story don’t sound like a crisis. At any given time I’m sure there has been a few dozen foreigners on the streets here.

Perhaps it's all fake. God forbid this is mentioned.

7 hours ago, Geoff914 said:

Deposit them at the Embassy of their home country. The Embassy's problem.

Most embassies have an appointment system and I doubt "deposit passport because I'm broke and can't go home" appears in the reasons for the appointment.

The 300b. fee tourists/we will be paying will likely cover as well the cost of deporting homeless aliens back to where they came from, and housing them in the interim.

The Bangkok Community Help Foundation said it had assisted around 45 homeless foreign nationals over an eight-month period.

That is not a large number. Double that to a 100 for all of Thailand is still not huge. You could find more than that drugged out in their tents is a small stretch of Skid Row.

Which means a million or two in air fare total to pack them off. Not a crisis.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Autocan

6 hours ago, kimamey said:

Who will pay for the flight?

I'm not sure. Credit card?

12 hours ago, riverhigh said:

"One resident, identified as “Jane”, a 57-year-old American whose real name was changed for privacy reasons, said she faced homelessness after losing her remote counselling job three to four weeks after arriving in Thailand. She had previously worked on Wall Street and spent five years working online before moving abroad."

My question is how can someone become homeless after a mere 4 weeks from losing their job ? What happened to the savings you made on Wall Street and the five years working online. Sounds like a story fabricated to garner sympathy. I am always suspicious of someone who makes up their name for "privacy" reasons.

Either that or Jane is one of those nobodys who "work online" or "on Wall Street" (which doesn't mean anything per se). Plenty of them on LinkedIn, "CEO of [insert name of sole trader company you registered the day before]".

1 hour ago, doctor_jakkarat said:

This is not a crisis its like 40 morons that came abroad unprepared. It's not hidden either they sleep outside in plain sight. I just give them a kick to the head as I walk by laughing.

I see lots of down and outs but I can't say I have ever been tempted to kick them in the head and laugh.

14 hours ago, Peterphuket said:

I, too, have a low opinion of banks, but don’t forget that they act on the instructions of their government. From my own experience, I can tell you that the government in the Netherlands is one of the worst in this regard: all transactions exceeding 300 euros that are not declared – and are therefore considered suspicious – must be investigated.

Are you sure it's 300 and not 3000? Three hundred is peanuts.

I fear banks will get worse with the widespread use of AI. One of my credit cards got frozen twice over the past 3 years and each time what caused this were just trivial uses, like using the card in a taxi app.

Have had a few experiences with unexpected problems on holidays.

Worst was the USA back in the 80's. Had cash, and credit card, also cheque book. No mobile phones back then. Got talked into buying something expensive, used credit card and a couple of days later it stopped working. US bank would not accept a UK cheque for buying dollars. Had to eke out our USA cash for the next 5 days until our return flight. Managed it with a bit of help from a USA pen friend. Arrived at airport, spent the last 2 dollars on a snack for daughter and boarded with 13 cents left. One hour later, plane had problem and landed in Maine! Was stuck there overnight and had to beg Nappies for daughter. Was i glad to arrive back in the UK.

Next was in France. Needed petrol early evening on way to holiday home, pulled into petrol station to find it closed. So were the next 3..... had to wait for French person to come to use a card only pump. and paid him in Francs.

Finally was caught up in the 2009 Suvarnabhumi airport shut down, Got stuck for an extra week. Fortunately i had ATM cards and just me to worry about. So, things can happen which you didn't expect.

When i moved here in 2010 I planned carefully. Researched online for 2 years. Been made redundant, so had capital. I still took my work pension early, maintained 3 different UK bank accounts, so 3 ATM cards, credit card and internet banking. There were still occasional problems but always one card/bank app that worked.

Those who come to work in Thailand, particularly self employed are in a much more difficult position. Many of them find that making a living in Thailand is not easy, over the last 16 years most of those self employed expats i met didn't last long. Most returned to their home countries, but one chap i knew was collecting stuff to recycle for a while and then disappeared. No safety net in Thailand.

I talk have talked to several young people who quit their jobs or have a plan to quit. They think that they can get a job online and travel or live someplace overseas. Most of them don't have any degree or special skill that would help them get a job that they could do remotely; however, they have this idea that it will be easy to work online. I am not sure if this is because during the pandemic many jobs were done from home or because most of thier lives are spent online in the form of social media, UTube or video games. This at a time when AI is doing more of what work there was.

My younger sister and her husband left jobs in a larger city and moved back home with my mom in the countryside thinking that they could easily find online jobs. A year later, they are both still unemployment and he spends all his time playing video games.

Many of these kind of people could move to Thailand with big plans, only to have the reality of that dream fade.

4 minutes ago, Issan girl said:

I talk have talked to several young people who quit their jobs or have a plan to quit. They think that they can get a job online and travel or live someplace overseas. Most of them don't have any degree or special skill that would help them get a job that they could do remotely; however, they have this idea that it will be easy to work online. I am not sure if this is because during the pandemic many jobs were done from home or because most of thier lives are spent online in the form of social media, UTube or video games. This at a time when AI is doing more of what work there was.

My younger sister and her husband left jobs in a larger city and moved back home with my mom in the countryside thinking that they could easily find online jobs. A year later, they are both still unemployment and he spends all his time playing video games.

Many of these kind of people could move to Thailand with big plans, only to have the reality of that dream fade.

A lot of folk don't understand that working online is actually harder than working in the physical realm, simply because you are in competition with the entire word. If you don't have a specialised skill, you have no chance.

6 hours ago, JackGats said:

Are you sure it's 300 and not 3000? Three hundred is peanuts.

I fear banks will get worse with the widespread use of AI. One of my credit cards got frozen twice over the past 3 years and each time what caused this were just trivial uses, like using the card in a taxi app.

You’re not Dutch, otherwise you wouldn’t question my claim, see also my other post about the huge fines Dutch banks face if they fail to meet the Dutch government’s requirements.

Police state – are you familiar with that term?

That’s what the Netherlands is starting to look more and more like.

23 hours ago, Priorexpat said:

Hello embassy, here is your citizen. Not allowed to live as homeless person in the Kingdom, they are not a citizen here. You need to send them home to your country to deal with this person's living status.

23 hours ago, Priorexpat said:

Hello embassy, here is your citizen. Not allowed to live as homeless person in the Kingdom, they are not a citizen here. You need to send them home to your country to deal with this person's living status.

Countries Embassies are funded by the government and if you were a taxpayer in a country that supports people that can't properly plan a holiday and pays their air itcket home whenever they run out of money would you be comfortable with that ?? I think not. I think that the THAI authorities have a lot to answer for especially with the 90 day visas that were granted without having to show sufficent funds for the period of your visa and there should be a set amount of money set out that you have to show before they let you in.

7 minutes ago, wavodavo said:

Countries Embassies are funded by the government and if you were a taxpayer in a country that supports people that can't properly plan a holiday and pays their air itcket home whenever they run out of money would you be comfortable with that ?? I think not. I think that the THAI authorities have a lot to answer for especially with the 90 day visas that were granted without having to show sufficent funds for the period of your visa and there should be a set amount of money set out that you have to show before they let you in.

O.K., so you feel it's the Thai authorities fault?

Nothing lands on the foreigner who coming to Thailand on vacation, runs out of dough, and is now sleeping on the beach in Patters and begging. Not gonna roll with that thinking although showing flight plans back out should be required.

On 7/10/2026 at 9:26 PM, Muhendis said:

"In some cases, international banks froze their accounts after detecting suspicious activity, requiring customers to appear in person in their home countries before funds could be released."

This is the really scary one. The banks are free to act as judge and jury with little or no regard to the owner of the account.

Supposing a bank froze an account thus requiring the owner of the account to appear in person. Would the bank accept costs incurred in the event of said suspicions proving to be groundless?

The answer to that is "of course they wouldn't"

The wording "suspicious activity" is actually "unusual activity" which means unexpected withdrawals. So for example, if you have an expensive car repair bill to pay using your Thai bank account which you then need to top up from your home country bank, this could be deemed to be unusual activity.

I don't have a high opinion of banks.

And if the banks to not have these protections, and when clients lose their money, the banks are blamed.

9 hours ago, Effective altruism said:

I'm not sure. Credit card?

Credit card maxed out long ago. Thai girl got the lot.

So, back to the member's question, "Who will pay for the flight?"

It's not up to the taxpayers of the foreigner to pay for the air ticket, otherwise you will have foreigners coming to Thailand looking for a free flight home.

It's not up to Thai tax payers to pay for the air ticket, or same problem as above.

Many have burned their friends, and family, by borrowing money to give to the Thai girl, so they are now maxed out of their generosity.

It's difficult to find a solution without creating an incentive for foreigners to milk a free flight home.

Perhaps one solution is they are escorted to their various embassies where they apply for welfare. No doubt if they could get home they would be going straight to their welfare office anyway.

If they meet the criteria, which surely they would, they are granted welfare and their first welfare payment goes on an air ticket which is bought for them. They are then deported on that air ticket. If they do not meet the criteria, whatever assets / cash they have is seized by their government for the air ticket, and they are deported.

Once back in their home country, they are given a second welfare payment, which has to be paid back, by receiving $5 less welfare a fortnight until it's paid back, or if they get a job, it's paid back at tax time.

19 hours ago, newbee2022 said:

Who wouldn't have a friend to confirm giving you a job 🤣🤣🤣.

So easy, not an obstacle at all

So the friend has to pay taxes and social security and hire four Thai

11 hours ago, alex8912 said:

I'm sorry for what you say especially if true. I see homeless in BKK as well but what I don't understand is how you "see" these people and automatically claim they have no family or even mental health issues? That would be great for you to report or explain.

You have to remember that homeless are really dirty and stink of piss & sh*t from living rough. I often sit & chat with them. Nobody wants personal questions, of course, but it often rolls 'round to their situation. Those with mental health issues are pretty obvious & I stay a safe distance for my safety. Often what they say doesn't make any sense anyway.

I suppose these encounters only happen to people who spend time walking and aren't afraid. I think many of us are afraid of the homeless as if their situation could rub off on us.

2 hours ago, PoorSucker said:

So the friend has to pay taxes and social security and hire four Thai

....and where did I say that?🤣

1 hour ago, newbee2022 said:

....and where did I say that?🤣

Not, the government does that, read the rules about getting work permit

On 7/11/2026 at 12:30 PM, PoorSucker said:

You need a have a job at least three months to access free healthcare

No, that's wrong

12 minutes ago, PoorSucker said:

Not, the government does that, read the rules about getting work permit

And where is the connection between homeless foreigners and work permit??😳