As America faces its housing crisis, many people are gradually shifting away from calling people living without homes homeless and instead use terms like unhoused or even houseless instead. While some may view changing language as dehumanizing those without shelter, advocates counter this perception by noting that individuals may still feel at home in communities, encampments, or tents they find themselves inhabiting; furthermore these areas tend to be more visible than other forms of housing thereby making homelessness harder to hide from view.
This new term emerged out of conversations among West Coast professionals who work with or advocate for those experiencing homelessness, and is slowly being accepted across the US. Though still not widely utilized by government agencies or nonprofit organizations, some nonprofit organizations and scholars and writers are using it. Adam Aleksic of Etymology Nerd noted it's beginning to appear more frequently in mainstream articles and discussions.
People who prefer unhoused as a term argue it is less stigmatizing than "homeless", which can imply people are lazy or irresponsible, as well as more accurate: while "homelessness" refers to an absence of permanent shelter, unhoused is more accurate in acknowledging structural problems as the source of homelessness.
Homelessness is also connected with negative beliefs that portray those without homes as undeserving and dangerous, which in turn skew policymaking decisions and lead to programs being underfunded in an attempt to help these people find housing solutions. Furthermore, this leads to criminalization processes where homeless individuals are arrested for sitting, sleeping and possessing personal items in public despite these behaviors being constitutionally protected behaviors.
