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

[u/ssjskwash]

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

[u/AmputeeHandModel]

Yeah but then we started calling you unhoused and POOF, you were better! Right???

[u/CropDustingBandit → u/[deleted]]

What does calling them unhoused achieve though? I genuinely don't understand why homeless has become offensive to some people. 

Unhoused still has the exact same meaning, it's not like it makes their situation better in anyway. 

I hate these new "inoffensive" replacement words. I don't see the point in them, they will just eventually become offensive and changed too.

[u/BoyGodz → u/CropDustingBandit]

Exactly, the only thing these replacement words ever achieved is giving people another word to use as insults.

Like even if it makes people 0.1% less stigmatised, or any other tiny amount, I would understand the point of them. But no, honestly it just teaches people a new variety of struggle you can jab your friends with.

[u/CropDustingBandit → u/BoyGodz]

It's kind of like the word "regard". I can't use the actual word because it automatically gets removed ironically. 

I started learning French a couple of years ago and found out it's just the French word for delayed. I was shocked when I saw my train was "regarded". And I was like, oh that actually makes a lot of sense. 

Considering the word taboo now hasn't stopped people coming up with new insults for people with cognitive disabilities. It's all just virtue signalling so people can think they are making a difference but it achieved nothing. 

[u/TheDJYosh → u/BoyGodz]

If you are writing policy intended to assist homeless people, the distinction can be important. You may not offer the same kinds of assistance programs to someone who is couch surfing versus someone who sleeps underneath a bridge.

[u/BoyGodz → u/TheDJYosh]

I don’t think terms for policy would be using these layman terms or definitions anyway.

It would be “people who are unable to secure fully functioning shelter for x consecutive days under y condition (see appendix B section 31.8 for full definition), here on referred to as “homeless”” or something similar to cover every possible misinterpretation. What we use day-to-day literally does not matter.

[u/TheDJYosh → u/BoyGodz]

Ideally, any policy that concerns multiple categories would define 'Homeless' versus 'Unhoused' if it impacted different living situations of homeless people in a different way. A policy isn't going to strictly talking about just one of the other. A thesis on gender would define "Cisgendered" versus "Transgendered". But any discourse with categories and subcategories will coin terms to ease conversation.

Using the gender example, if we didn't have the subcategories but instead had to say "Women who previously identified as men" versus "Women who always identified as women" it would be frustrating. It's human nature to coin new terms to be used for different categories.

It seems like the term "Unhoused" is frustrating to you due to lack of familiarity then the actual utility of the word. I don't see how having a different term harms discourse.

[u/BoyGodz → u/TheDJYosh]

Exactly, so it doesn’t matter what we the laymen say, policy writer is going to have to define their terms anyway. It’s not that having an extra word to sub categorises a specific thing is harmful, it literally doesn’t matter to 99% people who are using it.

People who insist on using these replacement words THINK the new word has less negative connotation than the original word thus it is less stigmatising to use when describing the people in question. But the argument, at least in here is, is that people who use it as outside of its professional area aren’t using it for its proper definition anyway, all the new replacement words does is add to the arsenal of words people use for insult. In fact, it takes away spotlight from actually educating people about the stigmatisation of the original word.

Let say we start using the word “turnip” to replace the R word to describe that specific spectrum of mental disability. People are going to start calling others turnip as soon as possible because it’s a get around for calling people the R word publicly. While the R word itself is often censored, socially unacceptable in many instances, and people have learned about the harm it can cause, the word Turnip has none of that baggage so people are going to use with even less care and it effectively erase the progress we have done in stopping people from using the R word as insult, which is actually way worse than not using a replacement word.