Homeless but empty houses

[Tosser of Coin]

Like title says, many of my people think they're homeless but I have like 50 empty houses..?? They're all accessable with roads and space and have had people living in them before.

[dixiechow]

Have you perhaps sent your people off to gather resources and they have wandered across a creek. When this happens, for some reason, they can cross the creek to gather stone but cannot cross to get back home. If this happens they usually die.

[pdoan8]

It's better to post a screenshot.

[Tosser of Coin]

Originally posted by dixiechow:

Have you perhaps sent your people off to gather resources and they have wandered across a creek. When this happens, for some reason, they can cross the creek to gather stone but cannot cross to get back home. If this happens they usually die.

Could have been this, good to know for future, thanks!

[Tosser of Coin]

Originally posted by pdoan8:

It's better to post a screenshot.

I got frustrated and reloaded last save so I don't have the problem anymore

[olympe]

With mods, building stuff on water is one of the main causes for this. Ask me how I know...

[Grace1957]

Why do you think they were banished in the first place?

[Banisha]

Read here tip #8
https://steamcommunity.com/app/242920/discussions/0/522730075946549340/

If I were you, I would demolish those empty houses and see what the family composition is like in the occupied houses.

AN OLD BUG:
On some maps where the map's edge isn't correctly set as invalid passing point, usually on a Stream/Edge connection point, so if your village is near a stream like that, places just on the other side of the stream will be seen as valid places to go and idle. They can cross the stream to get there, but will be unable to cross the stream to get back. The result is they become homeless, freeze and starve.
The workaround is to put a bridge across any small stream you have neared your village, so if people want to get to the other side, they have a safe and fast way to do so.
Ultimately though, that bugged spot on the edge might end up causing some nasty passing issues (like people going there to fill buckets if you have a fire), so you're better off restarting on a different map as soon as you see that issue happening in your town, and writing down the buggy map seed somewhere to check you never pick that one again.

Those buggy maps are pretty rare, but they exist. Many people never have that issue and will assume that people walking to a totally stupid place comes from an accidental click setting up a task in the wrong place.Whether you're new or an expert, find answers here at my pinned page.