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Serious question, is there any nuanced difference between "homeless" and "unhoused", or is it just a rebranding attempt (like spastic, then handicapped, then di

Serious question, is there any nuanced difference between "homeless" and "unhoused", or is it just a rebranding attempt (like spastic, then handicapped, then disabled, then differently abled, etc). I suppose in certain circles "homeless" leads to connotations of drug use, dirtyness and crazyness, where as "unhoused" (to me at least) conjures and image of a regular person in a temporary situation.

buckle8017 2y ago
It's purely a re-brand, the re-branders say that the "unhoused" have homes they're just not houses. It's stupid.
- pkkkzip 2y ago
  if you look at the NGO that receive government grants they have been doing quite a bit of renovation. Simply changing their brand from "homeless industrial complex" to "unhoused industrial complex" they can bank on slow bureaucracy and continue to pay themselves tech salary to perpetuate the exact same situation that ultimately provides no uplift. There's a correlation between "sanctuary ciies" and NGOs that ultimately hire based on political ideology rather than pragmatic policies. If you do not remove the drugs from the equation the overall situation will not improve. There's a big contrast between homeless population in Japan vs West Coast America and the obvious reason is access to drugs.
  - buckle8017 2y ago
    SF should just buy some large area of land 2 hours away from the city and offer anybody downtown openly doing drugs free drugs if they leave.
    - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
      We have an immense amount of free space in CA, it's just nowhere people find desirable, or nowhere the local community would appreciate you parking the temporarily dysfunctional members of society. You could build a fantastic homeless campus in Lancaster CA, there's abundant space, real estate is about as cheap as it gets, you have access to an airport, LA is not too far, it's already practically Meth Mecca. There's fundamentally no reason for cramming 10k people in some of the most unaffordable NIMBY real estate land of one of the most expensive CoL countries in the world. Even if these folks were able to overcome years of raging addiction, what will they do in SF? Learn machine learning? Become a wealth manager? A teacher? A cop? How are they going to make enough to live in the city when even most regular middle class professions can barely make it there?
MattGaiser 2y ago
I understood it to be two different categories. "Unhoused" being those literally without any shelter. "Homeless" can refer to anyone without a fixed address, but say couchsurfing. Most "homeless" don't actually sleep outside.
8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
It's the main branch of housing.
erehweb 2y ago
This article talks a bit about it - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/20/homeless-unhoused-houseless-term-history https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/20/homeless-unh... - from the purported original creator: "They're unhoused. They have a home: Seattle is their home" later excerpts "...the word’s root emphasizes that the problem is a structural one linked to a lack of affordable housing, not a personal weakness." "...those who have adopted it say it’s [...] to lessen stigma and to highlight that those lacking permanent roofs over their heads may still have communities or physical spaces they consider home."
- strken 2y ago
  Man, that quote is completely out of line with the experiences I've heard about. At one point we had a friend couchsurfing with us, and he wanted a home that he had real control over. He was in a house, but he didn't have a home. I don't see how this next step on the euphemism treadmill is an improvement.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    It's not - euphemism is great for middle class dinner party conversation, but it doesn't really help. The opposite could equally be true: a family could have a house, but it's one shared with a load of other people, so it's not a home.
  - stonogo 2y ago
    The term for your buddy is "underhoused". Part of the push for the term "unhoused" is to establish that housing is a matter of degree.
jimt1234 2y ago
George Carlin, "A War on Homelessness": https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=201&v=lncLOEqc9Rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=201&v=lncLOEqc9Rw
aaron695 2y ago
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buckle8017 2y ago

It's purely a re-brand, the re-branders say that the "unhoused" have homes they're just not houses. It's stupid.

pkkkzip 2y ago
if you look at the NGO that receive government grants they have been doing quite a bit of renovation. Simply changing their brand from "homeless industrial complex" to "unhoused industrial complex" they can bank on slow bureaucracy and continue to pay themselves tech salary to perpetuate the exact same situation that ultimately provides no uplift. There's a correlation between "sanctuary ciies" and NGOs that ultimately hire based on political ideology rather than pragmatic policies. If you do not remove the drugs from the equation the overall situation will not improve. There's a big contrast between homeless population in Japan vs West Coast America and the obvious reason is access to drugs.
- buckle8017 2y ago
  SF should just buy some large area of land 2 hours away from the city and offer anybody downtown openly doing drugs free drugs if they leave.
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago
    We have an immense amount of free space in CA, it's just nowhere people find desirable, or nowhere the local community would appreciate you parking the temporarily dysfunctional members of society. You could build a fantastic homeless campus in Lancaster CA, there's abundant space, real estate is about as cheap as it gets, you have access to an airport, LA is not too far, it's already practically Meth Mecca. There's fundamentally no reason for cramming 10k people in some of the most unaffordable NIMBY real estate land of one of the most expensive CoL countries in the world. Even if these folks were able to overcome years of raging addiction, what will they do in SF? Learn machine learning? Become a wealth manager? A teacher? A cop? How are they going to make enough to live in the city when even most regular middle class professions can barely make it there?

MattGaiser 2y ago

I understood it to be two different categories. "Unhoused" being those literally without any shelter. "Homeless" can refer to anyone without a fixed address, but say couchsurfing. Most "homeless" don't actually sleep outside.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 2y ago

It's the main branch of housing.

erehweb 2y ago

This article talks a bit about it - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/20/homeless-unhoused-houseless-term-history https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/20/homeless-unh... - from the purported original creator: "They're unhoused. They have a home: Seattle is their home" later excerpts "...the word’s root emphasizes that the problem is a structural one linked to a lack of affordable housing, not a personal weakness." "...those who have adopted it say it’s [...] to lessen stigma and to highlight that those lacking permanent roofs over their heads may still have communities or physical spaces they consider home."

strken 2y ago
Man, that quote is completely out of line with the experiences I've heard about. At one point we had a friend couchsurfing with us, and he wanted a home that he had real control over. He was in a house, but he didn't have a home. I don't see how this next step on the euphemism treadmill is an improvement.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  It's not - euphemism is great for middle class dinner party conversation, but it doesn't really help. The opposite could equally be true: a family could have a house, but it's one shared with a load of other people, so it's not a home.
- stonogo 2y ago
  The term for your buddy is "underhoused". Part of the push for the term "unhoused" is to establish that housing is a matter of degree.

jimt1234 2y ago

George Carlin, "A War on Homelessness": https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=201&v=lncLOEqc9Rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=201&v=lncLOEqc9Rw

aaron695 2y ago

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