The emotional cost of displacement

“This was our home,” says 43-year-old Baby Titus, pointing to a green-painted house secured with a rusty lock. Waves were repeatedly crashing on the right side of the house. “The sea kept entering and receding, and it caused a short circuit inside the house. You would get an electric shock wherever you touched.”

A road past Kollamkode Church in Thiruvananthapuram leads to the Arabian Sea, where rows of houses like Titus’s line the shoreline. Many houses here have been engulfed by the sea. The remains of those houses, along with the granite boulders dumped into the sea for a seawall, are constantly battered by the waves, each surge crashing against them with a frightening roar.

Kulathoor grama panchayat is the southernmost grama panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram district in Kerala. Its coastal wards, including Pozhipallivilakam, Mullassery, Kollamkode, Paruthiyoor, Pozhikara Beach and Pozhiyoor, have been facing severe coastal erosion for decades. Many of these wards have only seven or eight rows of houses remaining, out of about 100. Of those that remain, only a few are inhabited.

Fearing the house was structurally precarious and hence, unsafe, Baby Titus now lives in a rented two-bedroom house next door with her husband and three adolescent children, paying ₹2,000 a month. The house’s owners have moved elsewhere due to flooding.

Baby Titus spends the night listening anxiously to the sound of every crashing wave, wondering whether the sea is coming in — a reality shared by the families living along the coast.

Her husband, 45-year-old Thadhayoos, is an artisanal fisherman who goes to sea every evening and returns early in the morning. “Even when I am away from home, at sea, I can’t be at peace. Especially during high tide, I keep worrying if the sea will enter the house and whether my wife and children will be safe.”

When seawater surges into their homes, they take shelter in nearby government schools. They keep essential documents and clothes packed and ready, prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. When the water recedes, the school and panchayat authorities typically ask them to return home.

On September 28, there was a sea surge where another 40 houses in Pozhiyoor collapsed.

Houses flooding with despair

For families living under such conditions, the threat does not end when the floodwater recedes. It becomes a part of everyday life—a constant anticipation of what might happen next. A study by the Centre for Development Studies on coastal families displaced by disasters notes that repeated exposure to flooding, erosion and the threat of displacement can create a persistent sense of fear and uncertainty, adding to both physical and psychological distress.

“Most people in Pozhiyoor showed symptoms of trauma and depression,” says Dr Shreyas Susan Varghese, a psychiatrist who led a medical camp in 2025 in Pozhiyoor at the request of Kollamkode Church. “We understood that relocation had disrupted their important sources of social and emotional support.”

Some residents also had a genetic predisposition to depression, says Dr Varghese, while limited mental-health awareness and the stigma surrounding psychiatric care compounded it. “Displacement became an additional trigger for their psychological distress,” she says.

The cost of leaving the coast

Changes in coastal areas caused by both natural and anthropogenic activities have become a source of concern around the world. A 2022 study on the coastal changes linked to the climate, found that along Thiruvananthapuram’s coast, approximately 2.62 sq km of land had been lost to coastal erosion over a 14-year period, while about 0.7 sq km had been gained through accretion. The study notes that the normal rate of erosion along the stretch was around five metres a year. Pozhiyoor recorded the highest erosion rate at 10.59 metres a year.

As the shoreline retreats, it takes with it everyday spaces people navigate to maintain friendships, work and routines that provide them a sense of belonging.

“They don’t just lose their houses; they lose proximity to their neighbours and community members, the church as a place to seek comfort and sometimes counselling, and the beach where fishermen beached their boats and repaired their nets, women caught and cured prawns, and where community life happened,” explains Claudia Lang, an anthropologist who studies ecological grief on the Kerala coast. “The beach was common: it was where people played football or cricket, and where community ceremonies took place.”

Government steps in

The Kerala government introduced Punargeham, a coastal rehabilitation scheme for fisher families living within 50 metres of the shoreline across the state. The scheme provides families with the option to purchase land, construct a house, or move into a flat, with beneficiaries eligible to receive up to ₹10 lakh per family. Niravu Flats, located in Karode Panchayat, was built under the scheme. A total of 128 families from Kulathoor Panchayat have been rehabilitated in Karode, around seven kilometres from Pozhiyoor.

The distance from the coast has consequences beyond the cost and the difficulty of commuting. “Karode is a non-coastal panchayat. Relocating fisher families there has made access to the beach, their workplaces, and places of worship more expensive. This inaccessibility, and increased cost of living along with the loss of livelihoods and shrinking living spaces, affects their emotional well-being,” says social worker Magline Philomina.

The loss for Jose Thobias (42) is not limited to losing his home. It also reflects in something as ordinary as how he spends his evenings. After his family was rehabilitated to Niravu Flats, he got separated from the friends and spaces that once filled his free time.

“When my mother received the flat, my family and my younger brother’s family all moved into the flat. Now, I hardly see my friends,” he shares.

“Earlier, my friends and I would play cricket or football at the beach in the evenings. It was fun. But this place (Niravu Flats) feels like a medical ward. I spend most of my free time sitting here with my mobile phone, scrolling through reels. I feel lonely here.”

What Jose describes as loneliness can also be understood as the disruption of the routines and relationships through which people experience a sense of security and belonging.

For instance, elderly women in fisher families traditionally collect and cure fish, which is an important source of income and a major part of their daily routine. But after moving into flats, many of them have no space to continue this work and are left idle.

“Displaced people can experience difficulties in maintaining their sense of identity and belonging. The loss of familiar surroundings, social connections and everyday routines can create fear and uncertainty, which may contribute to depressive thoughts and emotional distress,” explains Dr Varghese. “For communities whose lives and livelihoods are closely tied to a particular place, being uprooted can have deep psychological impacts.”

The relocation has also altered relationships within the community. While some families received homes through Punargeham, others were left out of the scheme or are still waiting for secure housing. “Willingness to move from the shoreline was the main criterion for Punargeham. Those who could afford to build or buy a new home with the assistance did so, while those with fewer options moved into flats. Others stayed back or moved in with relatives. This uneven rehabilitation has created feelings of resentment within the community, a pattern often seen in government-led rehabilitation programmes,” Philomina explains.

Thus in a community that once lived close together, displacement introduced new physical and emotional distances.

There are no official records on how many houses have been lost to coastal erosion or how many families have been displaced. However, according to the parish records of Kollamkode church, of the 2,400 families who once lived there, 2,140 remain in the area. Of these, around 400 people are still waiting for a safe and secure home.

Moving far away from church

The southern coastal villages of Kerala are predominantly Catholic, making parish churches important places not only for worship but also for community life. Pozhiyoor has two main parishes—Kollamkode and Paruthiyoor. For generations, the church has been a place where people met neighbours, participated in community activities, shared personal difficulties and sought emotional support.

For those rehabilitated to Niravu Flats, even this familiar source of support has become difficult to access.

“If it were before, I could at least go to church and find some solace,” says Jenovi Thobias (60). “Now, with the knee pain and my age, it’s difficult for me to walk to the church.”

Her friends at Niravu Flats, Seline (68) and Mary Antony (54), share the same concern. They now want a chapel close by where residents get together and pray as a community.

“In crisis situations, people need hope to move forward. Often, faith is what provides that hope. Some women say that perhaps it is God’s plan that they are going through these hardships. In that sense, they use their religious beliefs to rationalise their situation and find a way forward. Church activities and prayer groups may also be functioning as tools to manage anxiety and reduce loneliness,” says Magline Philomina.

The church has also attempted to respond to the psychological distress among community members. The current vicar, Father Davidson of Kollamkode church, selected around 150 volunteers to identify people facing mental health difficulties or other challenges to support them. The parish later launched “Santhwana Project” in collaboration with Thiruvananthapuram Jubilee Hospital to provide counselling to families living in the coastal region.

Displacement, in such cases, is not just a loss of home and community; it can affect a person’s emotional and physical well-being, too. According to Claudia Lang, psychological repair cannot be separated from environmental repair. Ecological grief may also require psychological interventions and counselling when it becomes overwhelming. But the fundamental intervention lies in addressing the environmental loss itself.

For people whose identities, livelihoods, relationships and memories are tied to the coast, repairing their lives requires more than moving them to safer houses. It also requires recognising what is lost when they are separated from the sea, their community and the places that once made their lives feel like home.

Banner image: Baby Titus inside a neighbour’s house that has been wrecked by floods. Image by Arathi M.R.

This article is co-published with Mentality. Mongabay-India and Mentality are collaborating to produce stories on the mental health impacts of environmental changes on coastal communities.