Socially conscious frugal design solutions: Innovating for the needs of homeless individuals

The Homelessness remains a critical global challenge, necessitating innovative, cost-effective, and socially conscious design solutions. Frugal design—rooted in affordability, sustainability, and efficiency—offers a promising approach to addressing the needs of homeless individuals while minimizing resource consumption. This paper explores the intersection of social consciousness and frugal innovation, presenting design strategies that prioritize dignity, functionality, and community integration.This study examines the relationship between frugal innovation and social consciousness, offering design approaches that put community integration, functionality, and dignity first. The frugal design may produce practical solutions like affordable shelters, transportable sanitary facilities, and versatile urban furniture by utilizing locally accessible materials, modular building methods, and multifunctional functioning. This study focuses on successful case studies and new developments that demonstrate frugal design with a social conscience. In order to successfully scale such solutions, designers, legislators, and nonprofit groups must work together, and the policy implications are also covered. According to the findings, cities may create more inclusive urban settings and manage homelessness resource-efficiently and humanely by embracing frugality with empathy. Ultimately, this study promotes a paradigm change in design thinking that emphasizes social responsibility, accessibility, and simplicity. Societies might advance toward just and respectable solutions for homelessness by incorporating frugal innovation into urban development, guaranteeing that design acts as a catalyst for social transformation rather than just a means of obtaining financial advantage.