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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

It just means homeless, and it's just the newest entry on the "euphemism treadmill".

"Homeless" has a kind of stigma to it (maybe you picture a dirty bum on the street), while "unhoused" doesn't because it's so new. It simply sounds like a category of analysis devoid of emotional judgment. (Like maybe they're unhoused because a hurricane just blew down their house, not because they don't have a job.)

If "unhoused" comes to replace "homeless", I'm sure we'll get another term to replace it, once "unhoused" has acquired the same stigma that "homeless" does now.

Though I've got to say that "unhoused" is a particularly uncreative term! Essentially a literal synonym of "homeless". It's like they didn't try at all this time...

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They already have a new one. It’s “people experiencing homelessness” now.

My favorite offshoot of this is when I heard a Brit say, “don’t mind that guy, he’s currently experiencing Frenchness.”

While "people experiencing homelessness" or "unhoused person" is more cumbersome, it does help emphasize that it is a person, a human being, being discussed. Like the switch to saying "enslaved people/person", that kind of language puts the humanity of the individual first, not something they are experiencing (being enslaved or lacking a house). Which I think could help with empathy around the subject.

I used to be a person with unmet residential needs myself, and I would've been more offended by this newfangled term.

It's not just uncreative, I find it offensively patronizing. If I had no home, and someone told me "no, you're just unhoused!" I'd tell them to F off. A street corner (or car or whatever) is not my home (and if it really was my desired home then I'd not be in need of attention then). It's just trying to verbally paper over a problem and then claim you're in fact helping somehow

I have a similar internal experience to 'land acknowledgements'. Saying thank you for this great land your group of people stole from this other group of people, with zero intention to give it back let alone backpay the years/decades/centuries of rent and reparations you must have accepted, is beyond repugnant. It would be better to say nothing at all.

Yes, it looks like victor boasting. As a non-American I legitimately thought it was satire when I first heard of the practice

> It's just trying to verbally paper over a problem and then claim you're in fact helping somehow

Yup, plenty of people say that's the entire reason for the euphemism treadmill. You look good using the new terminology but nobody is helped.

And the people actually affected by the problem generally aren't consulted, and don't care at all about the terminology because it's the least of their problems.

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