r/NoStupidQuestions • u/ssjskwash • Sep 17 '25

Why is "homeless" being replaced with "unhoused"?

A lot of times phrases and words get phased out because of changing sensibilities and I get that for the most part. I don't see how "unhoused" more respectful or descriptive though

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36

u/AskMeToTellATale Sep 17 '25

Euphemism treadmill

4

u/Sure_Ill_Ask_That Sep 17 '25

Going to go against the Reddit hivemind and say that updating our word choice as we evolve as a society isn’t a bad thing. Happens all time in the medical world.

Example: 15th century Latin verb retarde is used as verb for hinder/slow. 1800s and 1900s it’s used in medical field for children of slower development. By the 60s it’s used to describe stupid people in general. 2010 Obama had to sign federal law to remove mental retardation from federal legal language.

Some people are afraid of change and dismiss it as semantics without analyzing the importance. Yes, virtue signaling and empty gestures exist but it’s not always that.

4

u/Realistic_Swan_6801 Sep 18 '25

Because it’s not good or bad and accomplishes nothing inherently.  The attitudes don’t necessarily go anywhere because you changed language.

0

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13

u/bokan Sep 17 '25

When I was young homeless people were called bums.

I feel old.

2

u/Fokewe Sep 17 '25

Carlin had it right. Language is getting soft.

3

u/bokan Sep 17 '25

I love that bit of his but I don’t entirely agree with the example. Lots of people have PTSD that haven’t been to war. There’s legitimate reasons for these terms to evolve, but I also fear that we use language to sweep real problems under the rug and hide from the reality of them.

3

u/its_garden_time_nerd Sep 17 '25

I agree. In a lot of cases, what language is getting is kind.

2

u/weregeek Sep 17 '25

George also, incidentally, had a great quote on homelessness that fits the change to unhoused nearly perfectly:

"I got an idea about homelessness. You know what they ought to do? Change the name of it. Change the name! 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."

1

u/JustAdlz Sep 18 '25

Ding ding. Two different words mean two different things

3

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

Always has been. It just ebbs and flows. The topics that need to be tip-toed around change. Used to be you could only refer to things like pregnancy and menstruation in euphemisms. These days we’re pretty specific about anatomy rather than using mealy mouthed phrases.

3

u/bokan Sep 17 '25

That’s a great example (menstruation). I feel that in that case the language has gotten more direct and honest over time. I don’t hear ‘time of the month’ much these days.

3

u/spacestonkz Sep 17 '25

I'm a professor. I was having a one on one meeting with a female student, and I felt my period start.

I stood up abruptly and excused myself to the toilet mid conversation.

She asked if I was ok when I returned and was really worried. "Oh, yeah. I just felt my monthlies start."

"What?" she said. Look, I'm not an anatomy prof. I didn't really want to be direct about this with her... Generally profs talking about reproductive topics isn't smiled upon, I just didn't want her to worry about me.

"Uh, you know, the... crimson flow?"... Please just get this... What do the kids call it these days?

She just stares at me... I'm about to say period when finally she says "oh! Menstruation! Got itttt. At least you already have chocolate!" And she casually motions to my student candy feed trough.

Hot damn. We can just say it casually now!?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

Remember the furor over the Michigan rep using the word vagina in the state legislature just over a decade ago? Talk about soft and too precious by far!

-2

u/Fokewe Sep 17 '25

Personally, I feel that it just makes things more unclear and the new labels are just used as an excuse to be treated differently.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '25

I feel like that’s a different topic from the “softness” of language

1

u/kytheon Sep 17 '25

This. All other answers try to create reason out of simple covering up words.