Background Social ties are believed to play important roles in mitigating depression and anxiety, as well as fostering mental health in the population. We test this association for young urban men in Bangladesh. Methods Using a locally adapted GHQ-12 instrument, we enumerate self-reported mental health outcomes for 824 post-adolescent young men between the ages of 18 and 29 in a low-income urban community in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We further measure the social network for all our subjects and estimate the association of social network of the respondents with self-reported mental health outcomes controlling for possible confounders. Results We find there are considerable variations in both the mental health outcomes and social network across respondents. The GHQ scores (mean = 9.2, SD = 4.9) suggest significant psychological morbidity among the respondents. However, our findings imply better social ties and connections can potentially mitigate negative mental health outcomes (0.05-0.65 lower standardized GHQ score). Among other factors, being married and a recent migrant are also associated with better mental health status (0.17-0.20 and 0.16-0.17 lower standardized GHQ scores respectively). Conclusion Our results underscore the importance of social connection in providing buffer against stress and anxiety through psychosocial support from one’s peer in a resource constraint urban setting. Our findings also suggest incorporating social network and ties in designing mental health policies and interventions.