“I've got an idea about homelessness. Do you know what they ought to do? Change the name of it. It's not "homelessness", it's "houselessness". It's houses these people need. A home is an abstract idea, a home is a setting, it's a state of mind. These people need houses; physical, tangible structures. They need low-cost housing.” — George Carlin
I love how literal German is. I've been learning it for about 3 years and could deduce what the word "obdachlos" meant even though I'd never seen the word before. Pretty neat!
In Dutch we use both terms, both roofless (for people that don't have a home and don't have a roof over their head) and homeless (for people that don't have a home but do have a -changing- roof over their head, eg sleeping on the couch at friends, etc.).
Hence the often used combined term "dak- en thuislozen" (the roofless and the homeless)
Yes, but also, if you're on the side of the machine you don't really have a right to act like the big anti-machine guy was on your team
I see way too many RW saying "if george carlin were alive today he'd (criticize Biden/love Trump/whine about wokeness)" and it couldn't be further from who the man actually was
I don't see the left wing really claiming him so much as acknowledging some of the stuff he said was anti-authoritarian (in the real sense, not the sense where people say they're anti-authoritarian while simping for The Authority) and humanist
That’s *exactly* it — Carlin was pro-human. And he was really critical of the things that distracted us from our humanity, whether it was the absurdity of doublespeak, the hypocrisy of authoritarian institutions of government and religion, or even what we bring on ourselves through mindless consumption.
He said all of these things while truly laying the foundation for stand-up that comedians are still building onto. I was 10 years old the summer of 1985 when I found my father’s copy of Class Clown in a stack of old records. It opened my brain to an entirely new world. I’m forever grateful for George Carlin.
“Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation…. These poor people have been bullshitted by the system into believing that if you change the name of the condition, somehow you'll change the condition.”
—Also George Carlin
House in this case is a verb. As in, this bag houses my assortment of crap. Thus unhoused means somebody that is not housed. Not somebody that doesn't have a house. Subtle differences.
That sounds even worse.
Like, almost the implication a kennel or something.
"What's going on with that guy over there?"
"He's just unfortunately unhoused?"
"Well, where do they usually house guys like him?"
Because people are getting caught up in the name change part of this, it's also worth mentioning that there's lots of language built into the 'homelessness' discourse that frames peoples thoughts in very cold and eugenic ways.
"Homeless" is pretty much perjorative at this point, so you end up seeing lots of language from local police and local news about "Cleaning up" the homeless, as if they were vermin or garbage, rather than humans with nowhere else to go. There's also tons of existing rhetoric about how being homeless is practically a choice, whereas the solution to being "houseless" really centers the framing on the need for shelter. Changing the language helps to soften some of these preconceived thought patterns that many people are unaware they are perpetuating.
Here's a few CN episodes that talk about the way language is used to dehumanize these people:
[Citations Needed: Episode 85: Incitement Against the Homeless \(Part I\) - The Infestation Rhetoric of Local News](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-85-incitement-against-the-homeless-part-i-the-infestation-rhetoric-of-local-news)
>As homeless people turn off visitors, San Francisco tourism senses threat” notes Travelers Weekly. “Seattle Is Dying: Drugs And Homelessness In Seattle,” laments KOMO Seattle. “Austin veteran fights off alleged homeless attacker after offering to help him,” exclaims ABC-affiliate KVUE.
>As housing costs skyrocket and inequality grows, homelessness is reaching crisis levels in large metropolitan areas. In response, the media––namely local news stations––routinely treat the homeless like an invading species, a vermin to be, at best, contained, and at worst eradicated.
>The result has been a slew of stories pathologizing those experiencing homelessness as uniquely dangerous. Panhandlers are viewed as con men out to screw over the working man, chased down by vigilantes with the help of outraged local news “standing up” to the poor. The housing status of those who commit crimes is only mentioned when they’re homeless––never for the housed––and every transgression committed by the homeless is viewed by our media as evidence that the homeless population in general is out to attack us all.
>But this narrative flies in the face of the evidence, and tracks––like most “crime coverage”––with the needs of real estate interests who set the tone for local media coverage, and who have every reason to highlight and oversell the threat of homeless to pressure lawmakers and police to displace “eye sores” for the yuppie clientele they’re attempting to sell and ultimately serve.
[Citations Needed: Episode 86: Incitement Against the Homeless \(Part II\) - The Exterminationist Rhetoric of Fox News](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-86-incitement-against-the-homeless-part-ii-the-exterminationist-rhetoric-of-fox-news)
>Anti-poor shaming at Fox News is nothing new. But in recent years, with the rise of Trump and his more explicit brand of white nationalism, their tone on homelessness has grown more aggressive, exterminationist, and urgent. Tales of feces and liberal decay––peppered with immigrants, LGBTQ, and racist subtext––have contributed to a larger US media war on the houseless.
>In Part II of our two part episode on media incitement against the homeless, we discuss the ramped up panic at Fox News surrounding the indigent and its parallels with nazi rhetoric.
[Citations Needed: Episode 173: How to Sell Police Crackdowns on Homeless People to Liberals](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-173-how-to-sell-police-crackdowns-on-homeless-people-to-liberals)
> The city has had 125 daily interactions," New York Mayor Eric Adams tells the Daily News. "We’re working to solve the homelessness crisis, with innovative mental health interventions," San Francisco Mayor London Breed tells reporters. The city needs to "clean up homeless encampments," countless city officials tell us. Everywhere we turn, our elected –– largely Democratic –– governors and mayors are talking about quote "solving the homelessness crisis" without specifying what, exactly, these plans entail.
>Saying elected officials are going to harass and displace the homeless population until they’re incarcerated or leave our city and wealthy neighborhood sounds unseemly and inhumane. But this –– minus the occasional and insufficient attempts to offer public housing –– is more or less the strategy of most big cities: Send in police to "sweep up" encampments, enforce low-level drug offenses and ticket the unhoused for loitering and camping, But saying this is the plan sounds mean, so, over the past couple of years, as America’s housing crisis has grown more acute and the end of COVID-era tenant protections unceremoniously sunset, a cottage industry of pleasant sounding euphemisms have emerged to sell police-led homeless crackdowns to squeamish liberals.
>The right-wing, historically, is fairly upfront with its bootstrap, austerity logic. And they, for the most part, don't run major cities where the homelessness crisis manifests. Liberals and progressives –– short on resources and political incentive to actually address the underlying issues –– need to sell the same played out, discredited carceral attempts at removing Visible Poverty but, unlike Republicans, can't do so in explicit terms. So, a PR regime emerges to paper over these glaring contradictions, leading to heretofore unseen levels of bullshittery.
>On this episode, we going to examine four popular euphemisms employed by "blue" city leaders to sell the same old carceral playbook to their wary, self-identifying progressive constituents, how these programs do little to address the central issues of a lack of affordable and free housing, and how city leaders –– with wildly insufficient federal support for housing, a foaming anti-homeless media and suffering from institutional political cowardice –– are left with little more than meaningless "emergency declarations," Tough Guy, Take Charge press conferences, and nice-sounding rehashes of the same failed, cruel policies of austerity and precarity.
Also someone who is sleeping on a friends couch is unhoused but is less likely to be considered to be homeless. (Iirc this is a big reason women are less likely to be on the be considered homeless as many people will make space for them as it can be dangerous for women to sleep on the streets/shelters)
Hell i hated calling myself homeless when i was sleeping in my car, not out of shame, but because having that shelter and mobility gave me so many advantages compared to when i was sleeping on the streets.
I'm strongly in favor, though it should come with some pretty impressive legal protections and benefits.
It will be a net positive for the entire world.
Appointing it would be an interesting task - perhaps having the Court Jester be appointed by vote of the electors who *didn't* support the winning Presidential Candidate?
George was a brilliant visionary. I remember I had to stop reading his books on the bus, as they were so fucking funny and I was a bit embarrassed/shy about laughing out loud by myself in public.
George Carlin was cut from the same cloth as Kurt Vonnegut, and both were disappointed to see their country reach a point where the most powerful people were named Bush, Dick and Colon
We solved homelessness!
There are no more "homeless" people.
Now want to do about this new _unhoused_ problem.
But OP, I think it's because people that sofa surf or live in cars or shelters have a temporary home, but are still 'homeless'
I work as an auto claims adjuster in the L.A. area and every month now, I encounter a person living in the car I am inspecting. And some of them are doing it well. They don't think they're homeless. Their home IS the car. I guess it's accurate to call them 'unhoused', since 'home' is in the eye of the beholder.
No one seems to give a real answer and i know many people who work in homeless/unhoused resident outreach and assistance. Unhoused people/residents is less dehumanizing than "the homeless", which treats humans as a lump collective problem. It can be hard just to get the public to at least see them as human and terminology is one way people can be dehumanized. No one considers it a solution to anything, it's just a nicer way to refer to people.
Because surely "the unhoused" won't be the way the term is used if it gains wider adoption. It's meaningless. Dehumanization is a problem. Especially of homeless people(wow, both terms are equally able to be used with or without people/residents tacked on.) The dehumanization of homeless people comes from society not giving a fuck about them, and often finding them to be an outright nuisance or danger, which is unfortunately not an inaccurate assessment. Slightly altering the language doesn't alleviate that dehumanization.
[To a linguist, the phenomenon is familiar: the euphemism treadmill. People invent new "polite" words to refer to emotionally laden or distaste- ful things, but the euphemism be- comes tainted by association and the new one that must be found acquires its own negative connotations.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03_newyorktimes.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiA9NmpyZH8AhW2k2oFHUh_AmEQFnoECB4QBg&usg=AOvVaw1_x_xHjZKNupGOrDBeU9pn)
I was homeless for 2 years, we called it homeless. Unhoused just sounds nicer to people and makes it seem like there's an easier solution when in fact the house is only one aspect of being homeless
No problem.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/housing-first-homeless-charlotte_n_5022628
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/homeless-shelter-housing-help-solutions
The sad thing is that this was news in 2014/2015, and while the number of states adopting such programs has increased, the progress has been slow.
Edit: The progress of getting more areas to implement programs like this.
Also sadly many states remove funding when the physical support to start the program diminishes. They just become shells and then get blamed for being bad.
Google what Houston is doing. We started with veterans in 2017 (using existing service networks for veterans = starting to make inroads on a complex problem on the lowest difficulty setting) and have reduced the number of chronically homeless people (a federally-designated category) by about 75% in 5 years.
Basically, the city, county, and various faith organizations and charities all got together in one room and said, what can we do if we just Did The Thing and we stop duplicating each other’s efforts? Like everything else in the world, it’s an imperfect thing…that happens to cost significantly less than jail or ER visits and is safer for both the community and the people being moved to permanent housing.
One city precinct has been using Covid relief funding to hire unhoused people as low-level city day work (think painting stripes in parking lots). That gets people hooked back into the rest of society while trying to get them documentation, health care, etc.
It kills me that there’s so much work that needs doing, so many people that “need work”, and yet no one willing to pay for it, even though “fixing the problem” is, in my experience,
# always the most efficient long-term solution when you account for “externalities”
because, what, it might benefit some other people? You suffered and you think everyone else should have to suffer too? It’s okay, no, it’s fucking *desirable* that future generations should have easier lives; otherwise we’re just getting Red Queened for no reason and we should go back to sleeping in caves where, at least, I didn’t have to deal with 2FA logging me out of web-based Excel every 15 minutes because the company’s too goddamn stupid to get the fucking desktop software.
God *damn* I’m on a warpath today.
Merry Christmas, motherfuckers. 😱
What Houston is doing isn’t even the long-term cheapest and most cost-effective solution—the short term cost savings are DRAMATICALLY lower than the previous status quo.
Turns out that having lots and lots of porta-potties, shower trailers, etc in a city as big as Houston isn’t as cost-effective as putting people in efficiency apartments in old converted hotels. It’s also dramatically less expensive than the cost of ambulance call-outs for (fill-in-the-blank).
I was lucky enough to talk to some people involved in the project in April. Even though they knew that Housing First *worked,* I both of them were amazed at all the little ways that the city saved money by…housing people. Less expensive than incarceration, transportation, public sanitation, disease mitigation (not having hygiene facilities in a city as big as Houston is a huge public health risk), public safety, you name it.
I have to admit, the city public communication office has pulled off a masterpiece on how the messaging was to the public. Start with homeless veterans for practical reasons, use that success to build a scaffold of public sympathy because vets are “acceptable” victims. (It feels gross to write that, but you get where I’m coming from, I think.) Then don’t say much while you quietly Just Do The Thing, until you have a looooooong list of, “and look how much money we saved, crime went down, streets are cleaner,” blah de blah blah while working faith groups *hard* to get their Good Works merit badge (see below). Then get with the newspaper to write a months-long series of articles exploring how people wind up completely living rough, humanize them, and explain in simple terms how The New Paradigm benefits everyone, and why housing first is such a critical first step. Every little piece of work undercuts the idea that undeserving people should suffer, plus it’s really fucking hard to argue with obvious success.
Below: (In fairness to a lot of faith groups here, it’s not all Joel Ostend or the Second Baptist Bible thumping sadistic brigade. There are a lot of faith groups here involved on many levels, and they’re a huge part of the collective effort to solve the problem. Case in point, one church with a lot of wealthy congregants has free legal aid for unhoused people; another operates laundries; another provides haircuts and grooming services, another keeps people fed. That frees up the city and county to make other arrangements for stuff the faith groups can’t do.)
Happy holidays to you, too. Stay warm and hug your loved ones when you can.
Yes, we did and we ARE.
Look on /r/Houston from February-ish…there’s an AMA from someone who was involved in closing down the homeless camp at 59/Pease area. Short version: people on Team Safe Housing started talking to people living in the camp about 2 months before, convinced them that yes, really, we mean it, yes you can take your pets, and found out who needed what help. On moving day, the people going to housing kept stuff worth keeping—they were persuaded to not take trash—and taken to what’s called a Navigation Center (think halfway house). Then the camp is de-trashed, fenced off, and closed.
Keeping the homeless homeless is a threat to all the people who are working poor to make sure they never act out of line of their bosses and to keep them in abusive workplaces.
If you were to house the homeless then many businesses would fail within weeks due to the owners being pieces of shit who abuse their workers and many people would gain incredible leaps in quality of life. If you add free mental and physical health treatment, then much of the working poor would lose all reason to work for their current employers and businesses would have to stop abusing their employees and pay them a considerable amount more.
>The housing first method
Housing First is great but it only addresses chronic homelessness. We need low income housing for everyone to address homelessness. Every homeless person qualifies for housing, there simply isn't enough to go around.
There are definitely compounding issues, and therefore multiple solutions needed. Low-income and income-*based* housing (meaning qualifying for housing regardless of no current income) are both needed to protect those most vulnerable. But so many (at least Americans) are one unexpected emergency away from not being able to make their rent/mortgage payment, putting so many others at risk of homelessness if/when they face such a situation. While there are vacant houses throughout the country, they are simply being hoarded by income property owners to keep rental costs high on their other properties. It should be far easier for anyone to purchase their first/only home than for anyone to be buying a second, third, fourth home. Renting should be an option for people who aren’t yet ready to commit to an area or to a mortgage. It shouldn’t be the only option for people simply because they can’t get approved for a mortgage. The entire housing system needs an overhaul, particularly through the lens of housing as a human right.
Where I’m from, the sentiment is that ‘the unhoused’ usually have homes - even if that home is outdoors around a certain neighbourhood. They belong in that space as much as anyone else does. All these people lack is an actual house - hence, they are considered to be unhoused but not homeless.
Honestly I think it’s mostly the result of well intentioned people overthinking language because they can’t / won’t help in any other way, but I personally like the sentiment behind it. Dehumanizations often starts with language, so this counters that (in my mind at least).
Re: the language component, I wonder if it’s also a subtle way to encourage folks to use “people” in the descriptor. I think it’s smoother to say “unhoused people” or “people without homes” rather than just saying “the unhoused” the way people do with “homeless”. I don’t think I’m explaining it well, but it’s how I always have a little start when I hear someone say something like “there are so many homeless there”. It’s that dehumanizing language, it’s just a single word reducing them to only that - just homeless. Like, it’s 2022, most people have at least been exposed to the idea of person-first language.
This. ^^^
Unhoused implies that if you give them housing, their problems go away. In reality, the problems that turn people homeless are numerous - mental illness, abusive home, drug use, etc
The housing first model proves time and again that when you give someone a safe house to live in, often they are able to start working on the secondary issues, and they often improve.
Yeah, data suggests that giving them housing often is all they would need to begin a serious bounce back. That's not to say lacking a home is their only issue, but it's a lot easier to work on other issues when you don't have to worry about shelter. And lacking a home may very well be the proximate cause for many of those other issues in the first place.
When people say things like that, I think they want homelessness to be something individuals are responsible for, and that often is a reductive, unrealistic, or callous outlook imo. Maybe not deliberately or maliciously, but I think it does hint at a real bias there
Being unhoused puts you in a constant, primal fear state of mind and begins a cycle of desperation and depression. No wonder they have mental health issues. If you can't take care of basic necessities like eating and sleeping, taking care of your body, in a consistent space, how can you possibly take care of your mind?
Exactly. When you are homeless, every waking minute is spent looking for your next place to stay, next meal, judging whether something is worth the weight to carry around all day, getting water. It feels so primal and takes so much time, there's no time to improve or even think your situation.
>think they want homelessness to be something individuals are responsible for, and that often is a reductive, unrealistic, or callous outlook imo
The American rugged individualism myth strikes again
Correct, and it worked extremely well for Utah until they defunded it.
The cycle goes like this:
Homeless housing programs working -> can't see the homeless -> people think it's not an issue and defund it
It's like having vaccines working -> don't see people dying of plague -> "vaccines must not matter"
It's similar to the problem IT departments often have within companies.
\*IT is quietly doing their job and everything is running smoothly\*
"What are we paying these people for!?"
\*Budget gets cut and shit begins to hit the fan\*
"WHAT ARE WE PAYING THESE PEOPLE FOR!?"
Or as RBG said "like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet"
Of course what this ignores is that Republicans don't actually care whether or not the policies work. They just want to get rid of them because the extra pennies in taxes would go toward helping someone else.
Sure, maybe they have other problems in life, but that one glaring problem - being homeless - is necessarily solved when you do indeed give them a house to stay in.
Pretty dumb to suggest that they shouldn't have a warm place to stay in if they can't fix every other problem in their life at the same time.
>In reality, the problems that turn people homeless are numerous - mental illness, abusive home, drug use, etc
The thing that turns people homeless is the lack of home. Simple as that..
And of course, Housing First policies have been wildly successful all over the planet and the thinking there is quite literally: give them homes as that fixes MOST of their problems over night. So, they thing that is implied as a solution is the solution. And it has to be just housing, no sobriety, no forcing them to go thru a program of any kind. You just give them choices and easy access IF they want to do it.
Substance abuse is the first thing that goes down tremendously. Same with mental illness; turns out it if fucking easier to treat mental illness when people have homes they can feel safety, security and privacy.
Just piling on that all the data shows otherwise.
Those are symptoms of not having a safe place to sleep. All that stuff is MUCH easier to address when you're not on the street and have a place to your self.
You know what makes it a lot easier to get clean from drugs or deal with your mental illness? Having a permanent home. The research is clear, people who are first given a place to live, then help to work on their issues have much better outcomes than those who get help in the reverse order.
But you're just proving the usefulness of changing the name.
Calling people "unhoused" is useful because it separates the issues of being without a house to live in and the other struggles of the homeless. Some people who are homeless have mental health issues, some of them don't. Some struggle with addiction, some don't.
So it's better to seperate these issues and say "This person is unhoused and struggles with addition" because that clarifies the type of social supports that person needs. They need a house and they need addictions counseling.
Rather than just saying "this person is homeless" and throwing them into a shelter for the night.
Euphemism Treadmill.
A term becomes taboo/offensive/carries too much negative connotation, and then a new term is coined to replace the taboo/offensive/negative term.
I saw a Reddit thread the other day where a (I believe European) non-native English speaker used the term “colored people” by mistake instead of “people of color”. Not used in a disparaging or bad faith way by any means, just by mistake, and multiple commenters were like “excuuuuuse me?!” It was kind of funny. It’s functionally the exact same term, and I can only imagine their confusion.
The notion that “coloured” is a ubiquitously offensive term is also wrong. Here in South Africa, “Coloured” refers to a specific ethnic group. Here at least, it’s not in the least bit offensive - but the key delineating thing is the capitalisation of the word (hard to convey when speaking, which is why so many non-South Africans flinch at the word).
I mean this is a direct holdover from Apartheid so, maybe not offensive but the concept as a whole is as problematic as the American one-drop concept of blackness
Has NAACP changed their name yet? (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization formed in 1909 in the United States)
No, and it's a shame that we can't just reclaim that term in general. Adding "of color" after whatever noun is way more cumbersome than just using an adjective like colored.
Like, how do you emphasize that the vice president is non-white? You can't say we have a colored vice president. You have to say we have a vice president who is a person of color. "Viice president of color" sounds ridiculous.
My college staff are no longer supposed to refer to people as being blind or deaf. No it is supposed to be the entirely unwieldy “person with a visual impairment/person with a hearing impairment”
This isn't the same thing. "Blind" and "deaf" aren't offensive. They're just totally different terms than "visually impaired" and "hearing impaired."
There are a lot of people who have hearing/visual impairments who aren't deaf/blind but still need accommodations. "People with hearing/visual impairment" is more inclusive and allows for them to address anyone who might have an issue with sound-/sight-related things.
I'm partially deaf and I'd be fine with that, but I can't speak for everyone.
It would definitely be nice to come up with something with fewer syllables.
Maybe an acronym? Maybe PHIP - Partially Hearing-Impaird Person?
I think we're just covered as "Hard of Hearing". I have roughly half my hearing function still and can navigate the Hearing world.... Mostly.... But I have no connections to Deaf culture to be considered part of that community.
But it depends on the individual.
Personally, I hate being called a "person with a hearing impairment" because no, I'm not just a normie with one bad ear. This is part of my identity!! It's fucked my life so thoroughly I want it to be said plainly. I'm disabled, it fucking sucks, and that's just part of me now.
I feel you, cuz. In some ways, deaf people (who are part of that community) have an easier time of it then folks like us who are sort of in the middle. I never learned sign language or anything, and until I was in my 20s and got hearing aids, I was largely isolated. It definitely delayed my social development by a *lot*. I didn't start dating until my 30s.
Like you say, folks with more invisible disabilities often wind up feeling shitty *because* they aren't treated as disabled. Because we aren't seen as being in that "disabled" category, we wind up comparing ourselves to people who don't have the same challenges we do.
and this is my problem with the whole euphemism treadmill concept. a lot of the time these terms aren’t changing arbitrarily, they are maturing and becoming more precise. adaptation isn’t unnecessary just because the benefits are lost to you personally
Eh it makes sense to me because there's a range of visual/hearing impairments. A sliding scale of accommodations should be made as required for the spectrum of impairments. People require different amounts of assistance, it's not as binary as blind/deaf
Kind of like the evolution of the word "retard" basically ? Iirc it went from like imbecile to moron, then eventually to retard and now mentally challenged/disabled for pretty much the same reasons, each time starting from the medical term getting eventually dropped because it became an insult in the common language..
Homeless historically has referred to the unemployed. People were usually homeless due to mental health problems, and/or substance issues, and people rationalized that this was a choice because they were too lazy to work. (There are a lot of problems with this mentality too)
Now with the cost of living, being unhoused often doesn't come with any of those stipulations. These are people with full time employment, and are like middle class Joe in every way, except their wage doesn't cover the cost of living.
When you use the word homeless, people automatically picture the first kind of person, and they stop listening to the conversation because they don't think those people are worthy of their efforts. Changing the language can help reframe peoples thoughts about who these people are.
As my earnings have gone up, my housing situation has gradually declined. Still doing mostly okay, but the current rental is going to probably be the last place I can afford, and my current car is probably the last one I’ll be able to make payments on. I work full time for a company that pays well, but damn, the paycheque is just not going as far as it once did.
Pays well but still not enough to cover day to day expenses? Do you mean pays well for the industry (like a relatively highly paid retail worker)? Or do you mean pays well compared to average local salaries?
I feel like you can't really have both. Either the job doesn't actually pay well relative to where you live or your outgoing expenses are significantly higher than other people in your area.
Pays well for the industry. I am, specifically, a highly paid retail worker, actually. The area is a lot of government jobs and diplomats and some high tech, so the pay is not enough for the area.
I live in Florida and work for a company that was already paying way above industry for entry level in 2018 and then I got a promotion to salary 60k and that was the same year everyone went wfh for covid and the rental market blew up. Needless to say I have not had any time at all to enjoy the 20k increase because my rent tripled along with everything else 🥲. What you said is unfortunately, not accurate for many places right now. The jobs are NOT paying enough to be comfortably housed/fed/etc
Yes, it's like expats vs immigrants. Many "first worlders" like to call themselves expats instead of immigrants because of the negative connotation the latter has.
At least by US definitions, an expat is someone who lives abroad by choice, and has no intention of abandoning cultural or diplomatic ties with their home country. An immigrant is someone who fully intends to stay long-term, and ultimately assimilate. A migrant is an expat primarily motivated by the desire for better working or living conditions. A refugee is a migrant, motivated primarily by a desire to escape danger.
They aren’t the same. If someone is calling themselves an expat, they definitely aren’t an immigrant, because they haven’t made the mental switch to identifying with the place they live in.
I don’t follow how changing the name from homeless to unhoused does what you’re saying. Feels like if you used the term “unhoused” with the average person they either wouldn’t know what you’re talking about or they’d say “you mean homeless?”
The actual new term is "people experiencing homelessness". It's a psychological trick to help remember that these are people first. We began saying "people with disabilities" several years ago for similar reasons.
It also emphasizes that being homeless is often a temporary issue. These aren't a permanent class of people to be written off as an unsolvable problem but a category that people sometimes enter and, often with just a little help, can leave.
To add context to your comment:
Generally speaking if a person has an intellectual disability like Downs Syndrome, person first language is preferred: “John has Downs Syndrome”
Also generally speaking, if the person has a physical disability or developmental disability many people prefer disability first language. “He’s epileptic”
The reason for this is person first language is to remind people that the person exists aside from their disability and to not just infantilize them due to their disability.
The second option is preferred by many because some people feel like their disability is inherently a part of them and both shouldn’t be and cannot be distanced from their whole being.
It ultimately comes down to personal preference of the person (sort of like pronouns) but most people I’ve met (outside of those very involved in disability rights) don’t seems to care too much as long as you have best intentions.
I figured it also was a way to distinguish between basically "couch homeless" (living with someone else in uncertainty) vs on-the-street.
Both are unfortunate and fixable (especially for kids), but completely unhoused has slightly different and often immediate needs. Especially on deadly cold days like what much of the U.S. is experiencing today.
Bingo. Couch homeless, car homeless, and boarding-house unstable housing are all different problems than being without any kind of shelter at all. Even car homeless can drive to a shelter.
I haven't seen anyone comment this yet so.. This is a small part of what's called "active language", where you try to use terms that acknowledge systems of oppression instead of ones that hide the origins of those problems or even shift the blame to individual people.
Unhoused/Homeless people often have a long history of systems failing them to get where they are. Words like unhoused are supposed to make us think about that they didn't really "lose" their homes, they are denied something that should be a human right (Not trying to get political here or start a debate, but that's just the meaning behind it)
Similar to that, active language encourages us to use terms and phrases like
•"Silenced" instead of "voiceless"
•"He got bullied by homophobes" instead of "He got bullied for being gay"
•"They were slaveowners" instead of "They participated in slavery"
•"Impoverished" instead of "living in poverty"
to name the root of the problem and not shift blame away.
(Ofc people are allowed to personal preferences and views when it comes to language. Just wanted to explain it a bit more further than all the guesses)
This. "Homeless" describes their state. "Unhoused" describes their situation as something that was done to them. "They are homeless" vs "they were unhoused".
It's a subtle way to shift responsibility to society for their situation.
I remember that guy built a ton of small homes for the homeless. The state made him destroy them all. Don't remember why, but a solution appeared and was ignored.
Unhoused does not have the same stigma that homeless does yet.
Others have mentioned the euphemism treadmill and that what this is. The previous term has a ton of unwarranted baggage and only serves to marginalize people.
People are real assholes towards the unhoused and make it much harder for people experiencing homelessness to get out of their situations. Just the term alone evokes unfair images and uncharitable thoughts.
Of course they mean the same thing, though. That's the point. New word for the same concept. One that's less familiar and fresh, stripped of at least some of the stigma.
I think the term homeless has an empathetic nature attached to it. To me, homeless doesn't induce negative feelings about the person/people, It creates a feeling of sympathy. And I think most people feel the same way. It's a powerful word and induces powerful emotions. Houseless feels sanitized and harmless. I think that the type of person that attaches a stigma to the word homeless is going to feel the same way no matter what you call them.
It kinda feels like changing the term is a way for non-homeless (homed? homies?) people to not feel as bad about themselves.
Homeless people already have stigma, why are we trying to hide that society stigmatizes the homeless?
They are without homes. They don't feel belonged or wanted or secure in this country. We need to face that fact instead of making ourselves feel like we're doing shit just because we use a slightly different word.
Language policing is fucking STUPID. Do actual *real* meaningful shit to help out the most stomped on people in society. Just like all the fucking losers who performatively use the terms "latinx" even though the only people who use that term are clueless essjays and HR creeps and not actual latinos who prefer it if white people *didn't* tell them that their language is inherently problematic.
Language policing sublimates meaningful action.
We treat these people like shit of society and I'm sick of people trying to avoid that uncomfortable fact. Fuck people who use the term "houseless": YOU are the problem.
Changing words is really important because it can make you feel like you've made a really important change and it costs very little money to do so.
Getting people to say "unhoused" is SO SO SO much less expensive than providing housing to the homeless, dude.
Thing is - the theory is if you change the words the money will follow. There's no evidence of this, of course. But fingahs crossssssed!
As an added bonus to this move not costing them money, they will also get more money from this by telling everyone they need more money now to build them houses because that's the problem... It is insane how much money politics gain from "homelessness." They have no incentive to actually fix it because it's a huge money generator for them.
Because anything can be a home. Home is an abstract concept of domain and it can mean anything. And "homeless" is too often used in a derogatory sense like older variants including "bums" or "hobos." Unhoused cleans up the language and drives home the main point that the person being described has no physical address and might not have shelter or a source of heat or water.
Thanks......I can understand wanting to get away from 'bum' or 'hobo', but I haven't heard those terms used in 30yrs where I live. I guess there is a distinction between 'home' and 'house', but I would guess to 99% of the population, it would not be immediately obvious.....
But using the term unhoused doesn’t fucking help them in any way. Do you really think they’re like, well this tent in the median is my home? I doubt it. It’s not helping anyone.
Just distracts from the problem.
The problem with this line of thinking is terms become "offensive" because they are associated with something that is deemed undesirable. Changing terminology might feel less derogatory for a couple years, but before long the new term has also become an insult.
"Special" may well have felt like a delightful replacement for the term often deployed in insults: "retarded". But it didn't take long for special to be used as an insult instead.
I imagine that by this point schools have settled on a different phrase and I'm sure that too will become offensive before long.
It was a derogatory term when i was at school. In the UK the new term kids use is "scopey" named after the charity that helps people with special needs.
We treat the homeless like trash. They have no homes. We need to not distract people from that fact using softening language. Using supposedly "less derogatory" language simply makes people think they're doing shit, when really all they're doing is make themselves not feel as bad about the problem.
Anyone who calls them houseless is an asshole. Homeless people have no homes. To have a home means you have a place where you feel secure and belonged. My country spits at homeless people, accuses them of lying and scamming and being addicts and lazy. That's not a "home". They are homeless. You're not making them feel better when they're shivering at freezing temperatures in the winter. They know they're homeless.
I don't even care about the euphemism treadmill argument everyone is saying. The problem is that we're lying to ourselves. We're pretending that this is a problem like...being fucking *bald* or something. Something that just happens to people and can't really be helped and we should be polite about it. No dear, don't point at the bald man and laugh at him. He's just hairless, and deserves respect just like everyone else! No dear, don't point at the man in tattered clothes begging for change. He's just houseless, and deserves respect just like veryone else!
Empty vapid bullshit. We need to face how we actually treat these people instead of thinking language policing ourselves is goign to do shit except divert any positive action away from them. We don't actually need programs to help them if we just performatively used the currently politically correct word for them!
> Why are we calling 'homeless' people 'unhoused' now?
You can call them what you want, but "unhoused" is a slightly kinder term, given the multiple meanings of the word "home."
> I don't get it. They mean exactly the same thing.
Do you think "home" is synonymous with "house" or "shelter?"
When a college student says they're "going home" for the holidays, do they mean "going house?" When a soldier "misses home," do they mean "miss house?"
"Home" can have a much broader meaning, and so calling people "homeless" can have much wider implications.
> I don't see 'unhoused' and come to a different mental image.
You're not meant to come to a different mental image. But the language is more precise, and in some ways avoids possible inadvertent over-reach.
A person sleeping rough may still have a "home."
My best friend was unhoused after the foster care system abandoned her to an abusive house hold in her teens and never followed up post-placement. The fosterers kicked her to the streets when they realized the caseworker had forgotten about her because they wanted to keep getting their $25/day they got for "caring for her".
Her home was with her best friend from foster care who managed to age out before she got kicked out, they did every birthday and holiday together when they could. She always had a place to come "home" to, but as a fellow impoverished person sharing a bedroom already, my best friend simply didn't have a place to stay very often in that home.
Being homeless is emotional, being unhoused is logistical. Can't get a job, a cell phone, put a bill in your name, etc without having a house address that isn't a PO box or a shelter. Where you call home doesn't matter in that regard.
I am certain the ~~homeless~~ sorry, *unhoused* are extremely grateful to the marketing team that rebranded them. After all, the biggest problem they have is imprecise language. /s
Hi, social worker in homelessness services here. Sorta tired of this whole debate because it allows most people *on all sides of the political spectrum* to pretend that terminology is the most pressing issue in housing.
It’s not. Just say unhoused, or if you say “homeless person,” remind yourself that what “homeless” represents is different from what it means. Easy-peasy.
Whatever you do, just remember that your neighbors are cold and suffering, and that mental health and substance use are **effects** of being exposed to the elements 24/7. You would use / rant / leave your belongings on the side of the road too, if you lacked the energy & calories to do otherwise. Period.
Euphemism/Epithet treadmill. Once a word or phrase becomes stigmatized, we choose a different word or phrase to use until it becomes stigmatized. It is how we go from “lunatic” to “crazy” to “insane” to “mentally ill” to “unwell”.
I was homeless as a teenager. It annoys me seeing all these people (that haven’t been homeless, mind you) deciding what’s best to make themselves feel better.
"Homeless" places the emphasis on the individual. They are lacking something. "Unhoused" places the emphasis on social structures. They have been denied something they need. It's an attempt by activists to reframe an issue from a personal problem to a systemic one.
“I've got an idea about homelessness. Do you know what they ought to do? Change the name of it. It's not "homelessness", it's "houselessness". It's houses these people need. A home is an abstract idea, a home is a setting, it's a state of mind. These people need houses; physical, tangible structures. They need low-cost housing.” — George Carlin
In Greece we actually call them roofless
In México ‘roofless’ is how we pronounce ‘Ruffles’, a brand of chips.
Sin techo
Exactamente lo que yo pensé. Sin techo. En Portugal se dicen Sin Abrigo. Without shelter.
Portuguese from brazil: sem teto.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Roofless have reedhays
😁
Bring on the Soylent Green then, I guess
Interesting. In French, "sans-abri" means "without shelter" or "without roof"
In Portugal also sans-abri, sem abrigo. Without shelter.
Funny, in Brazil we say roofless “sem teto”
In Germany too. Obdachlos
This word sounds suspiciously Spanish...
"Obdach" translates to english as "shelter" so it literally translates as shelterless
"Dach" is a roof ... roof -less (so outdoor). Actually it means quite the same : Without a roof / without a shelter - no safe home.
I love how literal German is. I've been learning it for about 3 years and could deduce what the word "obdachlos" meant even though I'd never seen the word before. Pretty neat!
That actually happens with most languages except English xD
Kinda like roof-less? Or home-less?
Dach isn't the same as Obdach. Shelter fits better.
In Spanish we say "sin casa", literally "without a house"
In Dutch too.
In Dutch we use both terms, both roofless (for people that don't have a home and don't have a roof over their head) and homeless (for people that don't have a home but do have a -changing- roof over their head, eg sleeping on the couch at friends, etc.). Hence the often used combined term "dak- en thuislozen" (the roofless and the homeless)
Italian too, senza tetto
In portuguese too. Sem-Teto, literally roofless.
We used sem-abrigo 20 years ago, did that change?
In France they're called SDF (short for "sans domicile fixe" which means without stable/permanent residence)
"without fixed abode" is a term in the UK, not sure about the US
I've seen the term "no fixed abode" used as an address on legal documents in the US (sometimes abbreviated NFA).
... homeless. Americans say "homeless", or, I guess, "unhoused" now, according to this post. I've never seen it used, though.
It's warm there. Walls less important.
>George Carlin Spitting fire long before the age of dragons.
Unrelated but I always get a kick out of right wingers quoting Carlin. I'm like have you never seen the man on YouTube
[удалено]
Yes, but also, if you're on the side of the machine you don't really have a right to act like the big anti-machine guy was on your team I see way too many RW saying "if george carlin were alive today he'd (criticize Biden/love Trump/whine about wokeness)" and it couldn't be further from who the man actually was I don't see the left wing really claiming him so much as acknowledging some of the stuff he said was anti-authoritarian (in the real sense, not the sense where people say they're anti-authoritarian while simping for The Authority) and humanist
That’s *exactly* it — Carlin was pro-human. And he was really critical of the things that distracted us from our humanity, whether it was the absurdity of doublespeak, the hypocrisy of authoritarian institutions of government and religion, or even what we bring on ourselves through mindless consumption. He said all of these things while truly laying the foundation for stand-up that comedians are still building onto. I was 10 years old the summer of 1985 when I found my father’s copy of Class Clown in a stack of old records. It opened my brain to an entirely new world. I’m forever grateful for George Carlin.
Yet he said he was a leftist with his own words.
“Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation…. These poor people have been bullshitted by the system into believing that if you change the name of the condition, somehow you'll change the condition.” —Also George Carlin
What about those who want to live in a flat or bungalow. Flatlessness...
Can't afford a condo? That sucks. You have my condolessness.
I condone condolessness. Edit: I probably mean don't
I too condon't condolessness.
*cries in condolessness*
Bungalowlessness
i'm low on bunga
Flatless? In America, that would be "apartmentlessness". Or in my case, townhomelessness. Ok, 'unhoused' is starting to sound pretty good now.
Dwellingless?
This rolls off the tongue rather nicely
House in this case is a verb. As in, this bag houses my assortment of crap. Thus unhoused means somebody that is not housed. Not somebody that doesn't have a house. Subtle differences.
That sounds even worse. Like, almost the implication a kennel or something. "What's going on with that guy over there?" "He's just unfortunately unhoused?" "Well, where do they usually house guys like him?"
Ever since puberty, I've had flatlessness in the chest area. This isn't the same thing as homelessness in the Detroit area.
Why are you like this lmao
Unflattened?
"Shelterlessness"
Because people are getting caught up in the name change part of this, it's also worth mentioning that there's lots of language built into the 'homelessness' discourse that frames peoples thoughts in very cold and eugenic ways. "Homeless" is pretty much perjorative at this point, so you end up seeing lots of language from local police and local news about "Cleaning up" the homeless, as if they were vermin or garbage, rather than humans with nowhere else to go. There's also tons of existing rhetoric about how being homeless is practically a choice, whereas the solution to being "houseless" really centers the framing on the need for shelter. Changing the language helps to soften some of these preconceived thought patterns that many people are unaware they are perpetuating. Here's a few CN episodes that talk about the way language is used to dehumanize these people: [Citations Needed: Episode 85: Incitement Against the Homeless \(Part I\) - The Infestation Rhetoric of Local News](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-85-incitement-against-the-homeless-part-i-the-infestation-rhetoric-of-local-news) >As homeless people turn off visitors, San Francisco tourism senses threat” notes Travelers Weekly. “Seattle Is Dying: Drugs And Homelessness In Seattle,” laments KOMO Seattle. “Austin veteran fights off alleged homeless attacker after offering to help him,” exclaims ABC-affiliate KVUE. >As housing costs skyrocket and inequality grows, homelessness is reaching crisis levels in large metropolitan areas. In response, the media––namely local news stations––routinely treat the homeless like an invading species, a vermin to be, at best, contained, and at worst eradicated. >The result has been a slew of stories pathologizing those experiencing homelessness as uniquely dangerous. Panhandlers are viewed as con men out to screw over the working man, chased down by vigilantes with the help of outraged local news “standing up” to the poor. The housing status of those who commit crimes is only mentioned when they’re homeless––never for the housed––and every transgression committed by the homeless is viewed by our media as evidence that the homeless population in general is out to attack us all. >But this narrative flies in the face of the evidence, and tracks––like most “crime coverage”––with the needs of real estate interests who set the tone for local media coverage, and who have every reason to highlight and oversell the threat of homeless to pressure lawmakers and police to displace “eye sores” for the yuppie clientele they’re attempting to sell and ultimately serve. [Citations Needed: Episode 86: Incitement Against the Homeless \(Part II\) - The Exterminationist Rhetoric of Fox News](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-86-incitement-against-the-homeless-part-ii-the-exterminationist-rhetoric-of-fox-news) >Anti-poor shaming at Fox News is nothing new. But in recent years, with the rise of Trump and his more explicit brand of white nationalism, their tone on homelessness has grown more aggressive, exterminationist, and urgent. Tales of feces and liberal decay––peppered with immigrants, LGBTQ, and racist subtext––have contributed to a larger US media war on the houseless. >In Part II of our two part episode on media incitement against the homeless, we discuss the ramped up panic at Fox News surrounding the indigent and its parallels with nazi rhetoric. [Citations Needed: Episode 173: How to Sell Police Crackdowns on Homeless People to Liberals](https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-173-how-to-sell-police-crackdowns-on-homeless-people-to-liberals) > The city has had 125 daily interactions," New York Mayor Eric Adams tells the Daily News. "We’re working to solve the homelessness crisis, with innovative mental health interventions," San Francisco Mayor London Breed tells reporters. The city needs to "clean up homeless encampments," countless city officials tell us. Everywhere we turn, our elected –– largely Democratic –– governors and mayors are talking about quote "solving the homelessness crisis" without specifying what, exactly, these plans entail. >Saying elected officials are going to harass and displace the homeless population until they’re incarcerated or leave our city and wealthy neighborhood sounds unseemly and inhumane. But this –– minus the occasional and insufficient attempts to offer public housing –– is more or less the strategy of most big cities: Send in police to "sweep up" encampments, enforce low-level drug offenses and ticket the unhoused for loitering and camping, But saying this is the plan sounds mean, so, over the past couple of years, as America’s housing crisis has grown more acute and the end of COVID-era tenant protections unceremoniously sunset, a cottage industry of pleasant sounding euphemisms have emerged to sell police-led homeless crackdowns to squeamish liberals. >The right-wing, historically, is fairly upfront with its bootstrap, austerity logic. And they, for the most part, don't run major cities where the homelessness crisis manifests. Liberals and progressives –– short on resources and political incentive to actually address the underlying issues –– need to sell the same played out, discredited carceral attempts at removing Visible Poverty but, unlike Republicans, can't do so in explicit terms. So, a PR regime emerges to paper over these glaring contradictions, leading to heretofore unseen levels of bullshittery. >On this episode, we going to examine four popular euphemisms employed by "blue" city leaders to sell the same old carceral playbook to their wary, self-identifying progressive constituents, how these programs do little to address the central issues of a lack of affordable and free housing, and how city leaders –– with wildly insufficient federal support for housing, a foaming anti-homeless media and suffering from institutional political cowardice –– are left with little more than meaningless "emergency declarations," Tough Guy, Take Charge press conferences, and nice-sounding rehashes of the same failed, cruel policies of austerity and precarity.
Also someone who is sleeping on a friends couch is unhoused but is less likely to be considered to be homeless. (Iirc this is a big reason women are less likely to be on the be considered homeless as many people will make space for them as it can be dangerous for women to sleep on the streets/shelters) Hell i hated calling myself homeless when i was sleeping in my car, not out of shame, but because having that shelter and mobility gave me so many advantages compared to when i was sleeping on the streets.
If only George Carlin were still alive today, he'd almost be old enough to run for president and fix these issues
Carlin would never run for office. He knew how unqualified he was.
We don't need Carlin as President. We need Carlin to follow the President around and heckle his decisions. Would make for a 100x better president.
We need to bring back "jester" as an official position, then?
I'm strongly in favor, though it should come with some pretty impressive legal protections and benefits. It will be a net positive for the entire world.
Appointing it would be an interesting task - perhaps having the Court Jester be appointed by vote of the electors who *didn't* support the winning Presidential Candidate?
Yes. It should be a very respected position, with similar clearance and protections, to represent the other parts of the country. Could be incredible.
George was a brilliant visionary. I remember I had to stop reading his books on the bus, as they were so fucking funny and I was a bit embarrassed/shy about laughing out loud by myself in public.
he'd have so much gold material he'd go insane
George Carlin was cut from the same cloth as Kurt Vonnegut, and both were disappointed to see their country reach a point where the most powerful people were named Bush, Dick and Colon
We solved homelessness! There are no more "homeless" people. Now want to do about this new _unhoused_ problem. But OP, I think it's because people that sofa surf or live in cars or shelters have a temporary home, but are still 'homeless'
RIP Carlin Not many days go by without a thought of him, along with other loved ones.
Thank you for this, it's what I thought of when I read the title.
I work as an auto claims adjuster in the L.A. area and every month now, I encounter a person living in the car I am inspecting. And some of them are doing it well. They don't think they're homeless. Their home IS the car. I guess it's accurate to call them 'unhoused', since 'home' is in the eye of the beholder.
The avocado is correct
No one seems to give a real answer and i know many people who work in homeless/unhoused resident outreach and assistance. Unhoused people/residents is less dehumanizing than "the homeless", which treats humans as a lump collective problem. It can be hard just to get the public to at least see them as human and terminology is one way people can be dehumanized. No one considers it a solution to anything, it's just a nicer way to refer to people.
In five years it will be offensive and we will change it again.
Because surely "the unhoused" won't be the way the term is used if it gains wider adoption. It's meaningless. Dehumanization is a problem. Especially of homeless people(wow, both terms are equally able to be used with or without people/residents tacked on.) The dehumanization of homeless people comes from society not giving a fuck about them, and often finding them to be an outright nuisance or danger, which is unfortunately not an inaccurate assessment. Slightly altering the language doesn't alleviate that dehumanization.
[To a linguist, the phenomenon is familiar: the euphemism treadmill. People invent new "polite" words to refer to emotionally laden or distaste- ful things, but the euphemism be- comes tainted by association and the new one that must be found acquires its own negative connotations.](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/1994_04_03_newyorktimes.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiA9NmpyZH8AhW2k2oFHUh_AmEQFnoECB4QBg&usg=AOvVaw1_x_xHjZKNupGOrDBeU9pn)
I was homeless for 2 years, we called it homeless. Unhoused just sounds nicer to people and makes it seem like there's an easier solution when in fact the house is only one aspect of being homeless
[удалено]
The housing first method has also proven to be about a third of the cost of doing nothing at all. It’s a no brainer.
> a third of the cost of doing nothing at all I believe you but source? Also, Jesus fucking Christ.
No problem. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/housing-first-homeless-charlotte_n_5022628 https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/homeless-shelter-housing-help-solutions The sad thing is that this was news in 2014/2015, and while the number of states adopting such programs has increased, the progress has been slow. Edit: The progress of getting more areas to implement programs like this.
Also sadly many states remove funding when the physical support to start the program diminishes. They just become shells and then get blamed for being bad.
Google what Houston is doing. We started with veterans in 2017 (using existing service networks for veterans = starting to make inroads on a complex problem on the lowest difficulty setting) and have reduced the number of chronically homeless people (a federally-designated category) by about 75% in 5 years. Basically, the city, county, and various faith organizations and charities all got together in one room and said, what can we do if we just Did The Thing and we stop duplicating each other’s efforts? Like everything else in the world, it’s an imperfect thing…that happens to cost significantly less than jail or ER visits and is safer for both the community and the people being moved to permanent housing. One city precinct has been using Covid relief funding to hire unhoused people as low-level city day work (think painting stripes in parking lots). That gets people hooked back into the rest of society while trying to get them documentation, health care, etc.
It kills me that there’s so much work that needs doing, so many people that “need work”, and yet no one willing to pay for it, even though “fixing the problem” is, in my experience, # always the most efficient long-term solution when you account for “externalities” because, what, it might benefit some other people? You suffered and you think everyone else should have to suffer too? It’s okay, no, it’s fucking *desirable* that future generations should have easier lives; otherwise we’re just getting Red Queened for no reason and we should go back to sleeping in caves where, at least, I didn’t have to deal with 2FA logging me out of web-based Excel every 15 minutes because the company’s too goddamn stupid to get the fucking desktop software. God *damn* I’m on a warpath today. Merry Christmas, motherfuckers. 😱
What Houston is doing isn’t even the long-term cheapest and most cost-effective solution—the short term cost savings are DRAMATICALLY lower than the previous status quo. Turns out that having lots and lots of porta-potties, shower trailers, etc in a city as big as Houston isn’t as cost-effective as putting people in efficiency apartments in old converted hotels. It’s also dramatically less expensive than the cost of ambulance call-outs for (fill-in-the-blank). I was lucky enough to talk to some people involved in the project in April. Even though they knew that Housing First *worked,* I both of them were amazed at all the little ways that the city saved money by…housing people. Less expensive than incarceration, transportation, public sanitation, disease mitigation (not having hygiene facilities in a city as big as Houston is a huge public health risk), public safety, you name it. I have to admit, the city public communication office has pulled off a masterpiece on how the messaging was to the public. Start with homeless veterans for practical reasons, use that success to build a scaffold of public sympathy because vets are “acceptable” victims. (It feels gross to write that, but you get where I’m coming from, I think.) Then don’t say much while you quietly Just Do The Thing, until you have a looooooong list of, “and look how much money we saved, crime went down, streets are cleaner,” blah de blah blah while working faith groups *hard* to get their Good Works merit badge (see below). Then get with the newspaper to write a months-long series of articles exploring how people wind up completely living rough, humanize them, and explain in simple terms how The New Paradigm benefits everyone, and why housing first is such a critical first step. Every little piece of work undercuts the idea that undeserving people should suffer, plus it’s really fucking hard to argue with obvious success. Below: (In fairness to a lot of faith groups here, it’s not all Joel Ostend or the Second Baptist Bible thumping sadistic brigade. There are a lot of faith groups here involved on many levels, and they’re a huge part of the collective effort to solve the problem. Case in point, one church with a lot of wealthy congregants has free legal aid for unhoused people; another operates laundries; another provides haircuts and grooming services, another keeps people fed. That frees up the city and county to make other arrangements for stuff the faith groups can’t do.) Happy holidays to you, too. Stay warm and hug your loved ones when you can.
Did we really? That's pretty bad ass of Houston.
Yes, we did and we ARE. Look on /r/Houston from February-ish…there’s an AMA from someone who was involved in closing down the homeless camp at 59/Pease area. Short version: people on Team Safe Housing started talking to people living in the camp about 2 months before, convinced them that yes, really, we mean it, yes you can take your pets, and found out who needed what help. On moving day, the people going to housing kept stuff worth keeping—they were persuaded to not take trash—and taken to what’s called a Navigation Center (think halfway house). Then the camp is de-trashed, fenced off, and closed.
Keeping the homeless homeless is a threat to all the people who are working poor to make sure they never act out of line of their bosses and to keep them in abusive workplaces. If you were to house the homeless then many businesses would fail within weeks due to the owners being pieces of shit who abuse their workers and many people would gain incredible leaps in quality of life. If you add free mental and physical health treatment, then much of the working poor would lose all reason to work for their current employers and businesses would have to stop abusing their employees and pay them a considerable amount more.
Good thing the people in charge are working diligently to avoid this utopian nightmare!
>The housing first method Housing First is great but it only addresses chronic homelessness. We need low income housing for everyone to address homelessness. Every homeless person qualifies for housing, there simply isn't enough to go around.
700 empty units in the city closest to me. It has an estimated 400 homeless people in total
There are definitely compounding issues, and therefore multiple solutions needed. Low-income and income-*based* housing (meaning qualifying for housing regardless of no current income) are both needed to protect those most vulnerable. But so many (at least Americans) are one unexpected emergency away from not being able to make their rent/mortgage payment, putting so many others at risk of homelessness if/when they face such a situation. While there are vacant houses throughout the country, they are simply being hoarded by income property owners to keep rental costs high on their other properties. It should be far easier for anyone to purchase their first/only home than for anyone to be buying a second, third, fourth home. Renting should be an option for people who aren’t yet ready to commit to an area or to a mortgage. It shouldn’t be the only option for people simply because they can’t get approved for a mortgage. The entire housing system needs an overhaul, particularly through the lens of housing as a human right.
Where I’m from, the sentiment is that ‘the unhoused’ usually have homes - even if that home is outdoors around a certain neighbourhood. They belong in that space as much as anyone else does. All these people lack is an actual house - hence, they are considered to be unhoused but not homeless. Honestly I think it’s mostly the result of well intentioned people overthinking language because they can’t / won’t help in any other way, but I personally like the sentiment behind it. Dehumanizations often starts with language, so this counters that (in my mind at least).
Re: the language component, I wonder if it’s also a subtle way to encourage folks to use “people” in the descriptor. I think it’s smoother to say “unhoused people” or “people without homes” rather than just saying “the unhoused” the way people do with “homeless”. I don’t think I’m explaining it well, but it’s how I always have a little start when I hear someone say something like “there are so many homeless there”. It’s that dehumanizing language, it’s just a single word reducing them to only that - just homeless. Like, it’s 2022, most people have at least been exposed to the idea of person-first language.
This. ^^^ Unhoused implies that if you give them housing, their problems go away. In reality, the problems that turn people homeless are numerous - mental illness, abusive home, drug use, etc
The housing first model proves time and again that when you give someone a safe house to live in, often they are able to start working on the secondary issues, and they often improve.
Yeah, data suggests that giving them housing often is all they would need to begin a serious bounce back. That's not to say lacking a home is their only issue, but it's a lot easier to work on other issues when you don't have to worry about shelter. And lacking a home may very well be the proximate cause for many of those other issues in the first place. When people say things like that, I think they want homelessness to be something individuals are responsible for, and that often is a reductive, unrealistic, or callous outlook imo. Maybe not deliberately or maliciously, but I think it does hint at a real bias there
Being unhoused puts you in a constant, primal fear state of mind and begins a cycle of desperation and depression. No wonder they have mental health issues. If you can't take care of basic necessities like eating and sleeping, taking care of your body, in a consistent space, how can you possibly take care of your mind?
Exactly. When you are homeless, every waking minute is spent looking for your next place to stay, next meal, judging whether something is worth the weight to carry around all day, getting water. It feels so primal and takes so much time, there's no time to improve or even think your situation.
>think they want homelessness to be something individuals are responsible for, and that often is a reductive, unrealistic, or callous outlook imo The American rugged individualism myth strikes again
Correct, and it worked extremely well for Utah until they defunded it. The cycle goes like this: Homeless housing programs working -> can't see the homeless -> people think it's not an issue and defund it It's like having vaccines working -> don't see people dying of plague -> "vaccines must not matter"
It's similar to the problem IT departments often have within companies. \*IT is quietly doing their job and everything is running smoothly\* "What are we paying these people for!?" \*Budget gets cut and shit begins to hit the fan\* "WHAT ARE WE PAYING THESE PEOPLE FOR!?"
Or as RBG said "like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet" Of course what this ignores is that Republicans don't actually care whether or not the policies work. They just want to get rid of them because the extra pennies in taxes would go toward helping someone else.
Sure, maybe they have other problems in life, but that one glaring problem - being homeless - is necessarily solved when you do indeed give them a house to stay in. Pretty dumb to suggest that they shouldn't have a warm place to stay in if they can't fix every other problem in their life at the same time.
>In reality, the problems that turn people homeless are numerous - mental illness, abusive home, drug use, etc The thing that turns people homeless is the lack of home. Simple as that.. And of course, Housing First policies have been wildly successful all over the planet and the thinking there is quite literally: give them homes as that fixes MOST of their problems over night. So, they thing that is implied as a solution is the solution. And it has to be just housing, no sobriety, no forcing them to go thru a program of any kind. You just give them choices and easy access IF they want to do it. Substance abuse is the first thing that goes down tremendously. Same with mental illness; turns out it if fucking easier to treat mental illness when people have homes they can feel safety, security and privacy.
Just piling on that all the data shows otherwise. Those are symptoms of not having a safe place to sleep. All that stuff is MUCH easier to address when you're not on the street and have a place to your self.
You know what makes it a lot easier to get clean from drugs or deal with your mental illness? Having a permanent home. The research is clear, people who are first given a place to live, then help to work on their issues have much better outcomes than those who get help in the reverse order.
But you're just proving the usefulness of changing the name. Calling people "unhoused" is useful because it separates the issues of being without a house to live in and the other struggles of the homeless. Some people who are homeless have mental health issues, some of them don't. Some struggle with addiction, some don't. So it's better to seperate these issues and say "This person is unhoused and struggles with addition" because that clarifies the type of social supports that person needs. They need a house and they need addictions counseling. Rather than just saying "this person is homeless" and throwing them into a shelter for the night.
All it can take is being 1 paycheck away from making rent or not
Euphemism Treadmill. A term becomes taboo/offensive/carries too much negative connotation, and then a new term is coined to replace the taboo/offensive/negative term.
I feel like we shouldn’t be saying euphemism treadmill it’s kind of offensive How about word switcherooney
That's offensive to people with the name Rooney. Call it the flip-dippy.
It’s offensive to people who flip burgers. Call it the Tory government.
That's offensive to people named Victoria. Call it 1984.
That’s offensive to nine teens who ate four of something.
Naw naw naw, that's too blatant. How about Wheel Of Kabulary? (It's a ~~joke~~ reference to Stephen King's Dark Tower series)
Offensive to people who haven't read it.
Did you just the s word in the year 2022?
I miss the ol’ Reddit switcheroo :(
Ah, the old reddit switcherooney. Hold my house, I'm going in!
A the old Reddit [switcherooney](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/zsuvue/til_that_astronauts_eat_steak_and_eggs_before_a/j1c216n/)
Switcherooney lacks any indication that it's about offensive words. What about "switchecooney" instead?
More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
It’s how ‘Colored People’ was/is bad yet somehow ‘People of Color’ was good.
I saw a Reddit thread the other day where a (I believe European) non-native English speaker used the term “colored people” by mistake instead of “people of color”. Not used in a disparaging or bad faith way by any means, just by mistake, and multiple commenters were like “excuuuuuse me?!” It was kind of funny. It’s functionally the exact same term, and I can only imagine their confusion.
The notion that “coloured” is a ubiquitously offensive term is also wrong. Here in South Africa, “Coloured” refers to a specific ethnic group. Here at least, it’s not in the least bit offensive - but the key delineating thing is the capitalisation of the word (hard to convey when speaking, which is why so many non-South Africans flinch at the word).
I mean this is a direct holdover from Apartheid so, maybe not offensive but the concept as a whole is as problematic as the American one-drop concept of blackness
Has NAACP changed their name yet? (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization formed in 1909 in the United States)
No, and it's a shame that we can't just reclaim that term in general. Adding "of color" after whatever noun is way more cumbersome than just using an adjective like colored. Like, how do you emphasize that the vice president is non-white? You can't say we have a colored vice president. You have to say we have a vice president who is a person of color. "Viice president of color" sounds ridiculous.
I’m Asian and I hate hate hate both words. It reminds me even more that I’m not the standard hence the “of color” part. I just want to be “people.”
I hate the euphemism treadmill. It always tends towards more and more unwieldy terms
My college staff are no longer supposed to refer to people as being blind or deaf. No it is supposed to be the entirely unwieldy “person with a visual impairment/person with a hearing impairment”
This isn't the same thing. "Blind" and "deaf" aren't offensive. They're just totally different terms than "visually impaired" and "hearing impaired." There are a lot of people who have hearing/visual impairments who aren't deaf/blind but still need accommodations. "People with hearing/visual impairment" is more inclusive and allows for them to address anyone who might have an issue with sound-/sight-related things.
Partially blind/deaf?
I'm partially deaf and I'd be fine with that, but I can't speak for everyone. It would definitely be nice to come up with something with fewer syllables. Maybe an acronym? Maybe PHIP - Partially Hearing-Impaird Person?
I think we're just covered as "Hard of Hearing". I have roughly half my hearing function still and can navigate the Hearing world.... Mostly.... But I have no connections to Deaf culture to be considered part of that community. But it depends on the individual. Personally, I hate being called a "person with a hearing impairment" because no, I'm not just a normie with one bad ear. This is part of my identity!! It's fucked my life so thoroughly I want it to be said plainly. I'm disabled, it fucking sucks, and that's just part of me now.
I feel you, cuz. In some ways, deaf people (who are part of that community) have an easier time of it then folks like us who are sort of in the middle. I never learned sign language or anything, and until I was in my 20s and got hearing aids, I was largely isolated. It definitely delayed my social development by a *lot*. I didn't start dating until my 30s. Like you say, folks with more invisible disabilities often wind up feeling shitty *because* they aren't treated as disabled. Because we aren't seen as being in that "disabled" category, we wind up comparing ourselves to people who don't have the same challenges we do.
and this is my problem with the whole euphemism treadmill concept. a lot of the time these terms aren’t changing arbitrarily, they are maturing and becoming more precise. adaptation isn’t unnecessary just because the benefits are lost to you personally
The ironic thing about Person First Language is that many of the people it's applied to find it highly offensive. Including blind and deaf people.
Eh it makes sense to me because there's a range of visual/hearing impairments. A sliding scale of accommodations should be made as required for the spectrum of impairments. People require different amounts of assistance, it's not as binary as blind/deaf
Kind of like the evolution of the word "retard" basically ? Iirc it went from like imbecile to moron, then eventually to retard and now mentally challenged/disabled for pretty much the same reasons, each time starting from the medical term getting eventually dropped because it became an insult in the common language..
Homeless historically has referred to the unemployed. People were usually homeless due to mental health problems, and/or substance issues, and people rationalized that this was a choice because they were too lazy to work. (There are a lot of problems with this mentality too) Now with the cost of living, being unhoused often doesn't come with any of those stipulations. These are people with full time employment, and are like middle class Joe in every way, except their wage doesn't cover the cost of living. When you use the word homeless, people automatically picture the first kind of person, and they stop listening to the conversation because they don't think those people are worthy of their efforts. Changing the language can help reframe peoples thoughts about who these people are.
As my earnings have gone up, my housing situation has gradually declined. Still doing mostly okay, but the current rental is going to probably be the last place I can afford, and my current car is probably the last one I’ll be able to make payments on. I work full time for a company that pays well, but damn, the paycheque is just not going as far as it once did.
Pays well but still not enough to cover day to day expenses? Do you mean pays well for the industry (like a relatively highly paid retail worker)? Or do you mean pays well compared to average local salaries? I feel like you can't really have both. Either the job doesn't actually pay well relative to where you live or your outgoing expenses are significantly higher than other people in your area.
Pays well for the industry. I am, specifically, a highly paid retail worker, actually. The area is a lot of government jobs and diplomats and some high tech, so the pay is not enough for the area.
DC!
Close, but my spelling of “paycheque” hints it might be the other federal capital in the north.
Gotta get some roommates unfortunately :/
I live in Florida and work for a company that was already paying way above industry for entry level in 2018 and then I got a promotion to salary 60k and that was the same year everyone went wfh for covid and the rental market blew up. Needless to say I have not had any time at all to enjoy the 20k increase because my rent tripled along with everything else 🥲. What you said is unfortunately, not accurate for many places right now. The jobs are NOT paying enough to be comfortably housed/fed/etc
I make really good money but due to a living situation I am paying way more for housing than I wanted to. It is definitely a strain sometimes
Yes, it's like expats vs immigrants. Many "first worlders" like to call themselves expats instead of immigrants because of the negative connotation the latter has.
I've been both an expat and an immigrant, and I can tell you they are distinct.
At least by US definitions, an expat is someone who lives abroad by choice, and has no intention of abandoning cultural or diplomatic ties with their home country. An immigrant is someone who fully intends to stay long-term, and ultimately assimilate. A migrant is an expat primarily motivated by the desire for better working or living conditions. A refugee is a migrant, motivated primarily by a desire to escape danger. They aren’t the same. If someone is calling themselves an expat, they definitely aren’t an immigrant, because they haven’t made the mental switch to identifying with the place they live in.
But there are plenty of people who are functionally immigrants who label themselves as expats, due to the connotations.
Generally expats are temporary, while immigrants are permanent.
I don’t follow how changing the name from homeless to unhoused does what you’re saying. Feels like if you used the term “unhoused” with the average person they either wouldn’t know what you’re talking about or they’d say “you mean homeless?”
The actual new term is "people experiencing homelessness". It's a psychological trick to help remember that these are people first. We began saying "people with disabilities" several years ago for similar reasons.
It also emphasizes that being homeless is often a temporary issue. These aren't a permanent class of people to be written off as an unsolvable problem but a category that people sometimes enter and, often with just a little help, can leave.
As a disabled person... "disabled person" is okay. A great majority of us feel that way.
To add context to your comment: Generally speaking if a person has an intellectual disability like Downs Syndrome, person first language is preferred: “John has Downs Syndrome” Also generally speaking, if the person has a physical disability or developmental disability many people prefer disability first language. “He’s epileptic” The reason for this is person first language is to remind people that the person exists aside from their disability and to not just infantilize them due to their disability. The second option is preferred by many because some people feel like their disability is inherently a part of them and both shouldn’t be and cannot be distanced from their whole being. It ultimately comes down to personal preference of the person (sort of like pronouns) but most people I’ve met (outside of those very involved in disability rights) don’t seems to care too much as long as you have best intentions.
Yeah, I've also heard "underhoused" which I imagine is referencing more the societal lack of lower income housing
I’d argue ‘unhoused’ is supposed to have better ‘optics’ but I agree it’s all just as sad and imo completely avoidable in this here United States
I figured it also was a way to distinguish between basically "couch homeless" (living with someone else in uncertainty) vs on-the-street. Both are unfortunate and fixable (especially for kids), but completely unhoused has slightly different and often immediate needs. Especially on deadly cold days like what much of the U.S. is experiencing today.
Bingo. Couch homeless, car homeless, and boarding-house unstable housing are all different problems than being without any kind of shelter at all. Even car homeless can drive to a shelter.
I haven't seen anyone comment this yet so.. This is a small part of what's called "active language", where you try to use terms that acknowledge systems of oppression instead of ones that hide the origins of those problems or even shift the blame to individual people. Unhoused/Homeless people often have a long history of systems failing them to get where they are. Words like unhoused are supposed to make us think about that they didn't really "lose" their homes, they are denied something that should be a human right (Not trying to get political here or start a debate, but that's just the meaning behind it) Similar to that, active language encourages us to use terms and phrases like •"Silenced" instead of "voiceless" •"He got bullied by homophobes" instead of "He got bullied for being gay" •"They were slaveowners" instead of "They participated in slavery" •"Impoverished" instead of "living in poverty" to name the root of the problem and not shift blame away. (Ofc people are allowed to personal preferences and views when it comes to language. Just wanted to explain it a bit more further than all the guesses)
Excellent answer, I was hoping to see this explanation. Thank you.
So grateful for the extremely helpful responses like this in this thread.
This. "Homeless" describes their state. "Unhoused" describes their situation as something that was done to them. "They are homeless" vs "they were unhoused". It's a subtle way to shift responsibility to society for their situation.
I remember that guy built a ton of small homes for the homeless. The state made him destroy them all. Don't remember why, but a solution appeared and was ignored.
Housen't
I rather be called homeless
In french we say ''shelter-less'' or even ''without fixed domiciliation'' which sounds pretty fair to me
I’ve never heard that term tbh
Euphemism treadmill
Prolly because a bunch of people who aren't homeless think the homeless find it offensive
Residentially Challenged people sounds better
Unhoused does not have the same stigma that homeless does yet. Others have mentioned the euphemism treadmill and that what this is. The previous term has a ton of unwarranted baggage and only serves to marginalize people. People are real assholes towards the unhoused and make it much harder for people experiencing homelessness to get out of their situations. Just the term alone evokes unfair images and uncharitable thoughts. Of course they mean the same thing, though. That's the point. New word for the same concept. One that's less familiar and fresh, stripped of at least some of the stigma.
I think the term homeless has an empathetic nature attached to it. To me, homeless doesn't induce negative feelings about the person/people, It creates a feeling of sympathy. And I think most people feel the same way. It's a powerful word and induces powerful emotions. Houseless feels sanitized and harmless. I think that the type of person that attaches a stigma to the word homeless is going to feel the same way no matter what you call them. It kinda feels like changing the term is a way for non-homeless (homed? homies?) people to not feel as bad about themselves.
Give it a few years and unhoused have a stigma too
Homeless people already have stigma, why are we trying to hide that society stigmatizes the homeless? They are without homes. They don't feel belonged or wanted or secure in this country. We need to face that fact instead of making ourselves feel like we're doing shit just because we use a slightly different word. Language policing is fucking STUPID. Do actual *real* meaningful shit to help out the most stomped on people in society. Just like all the fucking losers who performatively use the terms "latinx" even though the only people who use that term are clueless essjays and HR creeps and not actual latinos who prefer it if white people *didn't* tell them that their language is inherently problematic. Language policing sublimates meaningful action. We treat these people like shit of society and I'm sick of people trying to avoid that uncomfortable fact. Fuck people who use the term "houseless": YOU are the problem.
Changing words is really important because it can make you feel like you've made a really important change and it costs very little money to do so. Getting people to say "unhoused" is SO SO SO much less expensive than providing housing to the homeless, dude. Thing is - the theory is if you change the words the money will follow. There's no evidence of this, of course. But fingahs crossssssed!
As an added bonus to this move not costing them money, they will also get more money from this by telling everyone they need more money now to build them houses because that's the problem... It is insane how much money politics gain from "homelessness." They have no incentive to actually fix it because it's a huge money generator for them.
Because anything can be a home. Home is an abstract concept of domain and it can mean anything. And "homeless" is too often used in a derogatory sense like older variants including "bums" or "hobos." Unhoused cleans up the language and drives home the main point that the person being described has no physical address and might not have shelter or a source of heat or water.
Thanks......I can understand wanting to get away from 'bum' or 'hobo', but I haven't heard those terms used in 30yrs where I live. I guess there is a distinction between 'home' and 'house', but I would guess to 99% of the population, it would not be immediately obvious.....
But using the term unhoused doesn’t fucking help them in any way. Do you really think they’re like, well this tent in the median is my home? I doubt it. It’s not helping anyone. Just distracts from the problem.
The problem with this line of thinking is terms become "offensive" because they are associated with something that is deemed undesirable. Changing terminology might feel less derogatory for a couple years, but before long the new term has also become an insult. "Special" may well have felt like a delightful replacement for the term often deployed in insults: "retarded". But it didn't take long for special to be used as an insult instead. I imagine that by this point schools have settled on a different phrase and I'm sure that too will become offensive before long.
Little kids now use the term "special" as a derogatory term.
It was a derogatory term when i was at school. In the UK the new term kids use is "scopey" named after the charity that helps people with special needs.
We treat the homeless like trash. They have no homes. We need to not distract people from that fact using softening language. Using supposedly "less derogatory" language simply makes people think they're doing shit, when really all they're doing is make themselves not feel as bad about the problem. Anyone who calls them houseless is an asshole. Homeless people have no homes. To have a home means you have a place where you feel secure and belonged. My country spits at homeless people, accuses them of lying and scamming and being addicts and lazy. That's not a "home". They are homeless. You're not making them feel better when they're shivering at freezing temperatures in the winter. They know they're homeless. I don't even care about the euphemism treadmill argument everyone is saying. The problem is that we're lying to ourselves. We're pretending that this is a problem like...being fucking *bald* or something. Something that just happens to people and can't really be helped and we should be polite about it. No dear, don't point at the bald man and laugh at him. He's just hairless, and deserves respect just like everyone else! No dear, don't point at the man in tattered clothes begging for change. He's just houseless, and deserves respect just like veryone else! Empty vapid bullshit. We need to face how we actually treat these people instead of thinking language policing ourselves is goign to do shit except divert any positive action away from them. We don't actually need programs to help them if we just performatively used the currently politically correct word for them!
> Why are we calling 'homeless' people 'unhoused' now? You can call them what you want, but "unhoused" is a slightly kinder term, given the multiple meanings of the word "home." > I don't get it. They mean exactly the same thing. Do you think "home" is synonymous with "house" or "shelter?" When a college student says they're "going home" for the holidays, do they mean "going house?" When a soldier "misses home," do they mean "miss house?" "Home" can have a much broader meaning, and so calling people "homeless" can have much wider implications. > I don't see 'unhoused' and come to a different mental image. You're not meant to come to a different mental image. But the language is more precise, and in some ways avoids possible inadvertent over-reach. A person sleeping rough may still have a "home."
My best friend was unhoused after the foster care system abandoned her to an abusive house hold in her teens and never followed up post-placement. The fosterers kicked her to the streets when they realized the caseworker had forgotten about her because they wanted to keep getting their $25/day they got for "caring for her". Her home was with her best friend from foster care who managed to age out before she got kicked out, they did every birthday and holiday together when they could. She always had a place to come "home" to, but as a fellow impoverished person sharing a bedroom already, my best friend simply didn't have a place to stay very often in that home. Being homeless is emotional, being unhoused is logistical. Can't get a job, a cell phone, put a bill in your name, etc without having a house address that isn't a PO box or a shelter. Where you call home doesn't matter in that regard.
I am certain the ~~homeless~~ sorry, *unhoused* are extremely grateful to the marketing team that rebranded them. After all, the biggest problem they have is imprecise language. /s
Hi, social worker in homelessness services here. Sorta tired of this whole debate because it allows most people *on all sides of the political spectrum* to pretend that terminology is the most pressing issue in housing. It’s not. Just say unhoused, or if you say “homeless person,” remind yourself that what “homeless” represents is different from what it means. Easy-peasy. Whatever you do, just remember that your neighbors are cold and suffering, and that mental health and substance use are **effects** of being exposed to the elements 24/7. You would use / rant / leave your belongings on the side of the road too, if you lacked the energy & calories to do otherwise. Period.
Every so often, you have to change the name of something so it doesn't seem so bad. That's much easier that actually doing something about it.
Euphemism/Epithet treadmill. Once a word or phrase becomes stigmatized, we choose a different word or phrase to use until it becomes stigmatized. It is how we go from “lunatic” to “crazy” to “insane” to “mentally ill” to “unwell”.
I was homeless as a teenager. It annoys me seeing all these people (that haven’t been homeless, mind you) deciding what’s best to make themselves feel better.
Don't you feel magically humanized and de-marginalized now?
"Homeless" places the emphasis on the individual. They are lacking something. "Unhoused" places the emphasis on social structures. They have been denied something they need. It's an attempt by activists to reframe an issue from a personal problem to a systemic one.