Current Events > Why is "unhoused" preferred to "homeless?"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is it the social stigma attached to homelessness? Because unhoused seems like it could be less accurate, but I dont really know.

unhoused seems like you had a house and then lost it

I always thought homeless was better than bum / hobo. But now people think homeless is bad?

It's bullshit it what it is.

To sugarcoat the word so it doesn't hurt feelings. The truth is the truth. Muhfuckers are homeless

Because the world is their home? They just don't have a house. Sorry that's all I could come up with.

Every few years people like to shake things up and come up with new terms to refer to groups of people.

Next it will be the Domicile Challenged or something.

I'm in-between living in houses

https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY

Over time people like to become offended by labels, so they change them to something else, arbitrarily deemed less offenseive. I wonder what they'll be called next, once people become offended by unhoused.

Because almost no one owns a home anymore.

The truth is, just using a different word can change how people react, the word homeless has a lot of bad connotations for a number of people.

Flauros posted...

Domicile Challenged

Haha

Northlane posted...

https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY

lold

Unhoused sounds like something a post British lord would say

Unhoused is too many syllables compared to homeless or bum tho

Northlane posted...

https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY

Seeing as how PTSD shows up in literally millions of people who have never seen battle, he's completely wrong here.

It's more accurate than shellshock or battle fatigue.

Northlane posted...

https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY

Came to post this.

Proud zero property tax payer

What do you call someone who intentionally lives in their car? They could live in a hotel or something, but why bother?

What do you call someone that lives in hotels? They travel a lot and don't bother having a permanent residence?

What about someone who lives off the grid?

"Homeless" absolutely carries a negative social stigma which creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. The response to homelessness is almost always, "Why don't they get a job?" As if that question just solves every complicated problem associated with being homeless.

Because liberals think changing the name of the condition will change the condition.

Carlin has an all-timer of a bit on this. That i see was already posted multiple times.

Theyre....HANDI-CAPABLE!

Because when you don't wanna deal with the real problem, you just lower the bar of helping extremely low and try to change shit that doesn't actually matter but still makes it feel like you're doing something.

DKBananaSlamma posted...

Unhoused is too many syllables compared to homeless or bum tho

You might want to count those syllables again.

marthsheretoo posted...

You might want to count those syllables again.

un-uh-hou-sed-uh

A house isn't always a home.

I don't have a problem with it, but I don't really see why it is coming into use either. Like I can understand the switch from "mentally ill/challenged/handicapped" to "neurodivergent" because that carries a much less negative connotation, but to me "homeless" and "unhoused" are virtually synonymous

marthsheretoo posted...

You might want to count those syllables again.

Un-hous-duh, e

Home-les, 2

Bum, 1

It really doesn't matter, it means the same thing today. People for some reason think 'homeless' has negative connotations to it -- of course it does, because it has a negative suffix in -less, but so does unhoused.

The irony is that, with English being a Germanic language, technically un- is a strong-negative; meaning unhoused is more negative than homeless.

Someone who is godless has no god, someone who is ungodly is evil.

I don't like this new term. I think unhoused mutes the severity of it.

It makes it sound like somebody lost a game.

What about uncondominiumed, or unapartmented?

voldothegr8 posted...

What about uncondominiumed, or unapartmented?

There's a general rule; an ending sonorant (m, n), sibilant (s), or fricative (ch) get -less, most others get un-, like plosives (p, b, k, etc). Like most things in English it's just general and has many exceptions; rooted mostly in tradition.

Homelessness; but, never housedless
Unperturbed, but never perturbless

You'll notice too that many of perturbeds' synonyms/antonyms end in plosives:

unchangeable; uninterrupted; undisturbed; unthwartable

I call them residentially challenged

Because the evil millionaire landlords who cause it don't want to ruin their image with such a negative-sounding word

xGhostchantx posted...

You'll notice too that many of perturbeds' synonyms/antonyms end in plosives:

unchangeable; uninterrupted; undisturbed; unthwartable

None of those end in plosives.

Unchangsplosives does, though.

DrizztLink posted...

None of those end in plosives.

Unchangsplosives does, though.

Ha!

I feel like unhoused is a more accurate term. Like I have a roof over my head, but I certainly don't consider it home.

that means homeless would be the more appropriate term. most homeless sleep in shelters or in temp rooms at the sallyann (etc). That's a roof over their head, but it certainly is no home

They refer to different people. A homeless person can live with friends, have hotel room, live in a vehicle, etc. An unhoused person typically has no place to live at all, ie lives on the streets.

Thinking more about it, some people prefer to use "people without homes." But,
Homeless > people with less homes > people with FEWER homes
It should be "homefewer people," since the number is countable.

JoeDangIt posted...

Because almost no one owns a home anymore.

"I'm poor, and angry about it"

Also, deluded.

I usually use the term disadvantaged person.

homeless / unhoused have too many negative connotations.

shironinja posted...

I usually use the term disadvantaged person.

we're all disadvantaged. though the ones in the street are the most impacted.

city had to clear up a homeless camp that lasted 3 months because of problems. they moved them to another part of the city where there wasn't much homeowners.

Lost_All_Senses posted...

Because when you don't wanna deal with the real problem, you just lower the bar of helping extremely low and try to change shit that doesn't actually matter but still makes it feel like you're doing something.

Yeah this sounds about right. Symbolic bullshit to look like a sympathetic ally while not addressing the issue

Northlane posted...

https://youtu.be/h67k9eEw9AY

This, basically.

It's fucking dumb shit that people do to be politically correct or morally upright.

I've literally never heard "unhoused" prior to this topic.

Even John Oliver uses unhoused. It doesn't make sense to me.
DrizztLink posted...

Seeing as how PTSD shows up in literally millions of people who have never seen battle, he's completely wrong here.

It's more accurate than shellshock or battle fatigue.

Did the video mention PTSD?
ChocoboMogALT posted...

What do you call someone who intentionally lives in their car? They could live in a hotel or something, but why bother?

What do you call someone that lives in hotels? They travel a lot and don't bother having a permanent residence?

What about someone who lives off the grid?

"Homeless" absolutely carries a negative social stigma which creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. The response to homelessness is almost always, "Why don't they get a job?" As if that question just solves every complicated problem associated with being homeless.

inventing a new term that means the exact same isn't going to lower the stigma at all.
Sariana21 posted...

They refer to different people. A homeless person can live with friends, have hotel room, live in a vehicle, etc. An unhoused person typically has no place to live at all, ie lives on the streets.

And then we have people who claim unhoused is the more severe term, which defeats the purpose of coining unhoused.
ChocoboMogALT posted...

Thinking more about it, some people prefer to use "people without homes." But,
Homeless > people with less homes > people with FEWER homes
It should be "homefewer people," since the number is countable.

And then we have people making intentionally nonsensical puns.

CE is weirdly reactionary about this.

Based on a quick Google search (which evidently few in this topic have attempted), terms like "unhoused" have been proposed because it dodges stigma that has collected on the word "homeless" over time and attempts to shift perspective towards unhoused people to be more sympathetic, to recognize all people deserve to be housed, and to acknowledge that houselessness is a temporary and not a defining feature of a person.

The word homeless has become inseparable from a toxic narrative that blames and demonizes people who are unhoused, according to Eve Garrow, homelessness policy analyst and advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The term is increasingly used in a way where it implies someone is dangerous or devious, she said. As a result, a less charged term is more apt.

I saw it compared to the changing of "gender identity disorder" to "gender dysphoria", a renaming that aimed to challenge the idea that a person's identity is defective for their gender not conforming to the roles and presentation society expects of their sex.

you can have no house, but still have a place to call home.

Doe posted...

CE is weirdly reactionary about this.

Based on a quick Google search (which evidently few in this topic have attempted), terms like "unhoused" have been proposed because it dodges stigma that has collected on the word "homeless" over time and attempts to shift perspective towards unhoused people to be more sympathetic, to recognize all people deserve to be housed, and to acknowledge that houselessness is a temporary and not a defining feature of a person.

I saw it compared to the changing of "gender identity disorder" to "gender dysphoria", a renaming that aimed to challenge the idea that a person's identity is defective for their gender not conforming to the roles and presentation society expects of their sex.

What a meaningless post. You attempted to explain something that we all understood. We're discussing how that new word doesn't actually do that.

sadib100 posted...

What a meaningless post. You attempted to explain something that we all understood. We're discussing how that new word doesn't actually do that.

Why not?
Get out and talk to people. There are people who will say "homeless" like it's acid coming from their throat. Just changing the word used reframes the problem and humanizes the people, even if temporarily. When a word becomes a slur, like homeless, or the r-word, or even something like Democrat or Obamacare, resetting the conversation helps bring biases closer to reality - again, even if temporarily as can be seen by the history of the r-word.
Edit: similarly, see antiquated words for Black People.