Nothing about whether or not the person involved happened to have a permanent place of residence is a relevant descriptor to the situation at hand.
Great, and neither does their hair color, their # of kids, their name, their birthplace, or any of the other 100 details we normally include. Would you prefer all news articles were:
> Someone was walking and a car hit and killed them.
And that is the end of the story?
Fair enough. It felt like a wholly unnecessary descriptor to me, intended to lessen the value of that person's life.