I heard a really good explanation of this on NPR. Homeless is a label put on a person, similar to saying a person is a redhead. The implication of saying that someone is homeless is that it defines who they are, that it cannot be easily changed.

Unhoused is more descriptive of the situation that a person is in. This is a condition that can be changed, it isn’t who the person is.

As I revisit this and think it through though, it seems like another way of pushing the goal. There are absolutely negative connotations with the word homeless, but the same venom will eventually attach to unhoused as well.

I like the word unhoused, it implies they should just be housed if they are homeless. Everyone should be housed, even if they don’t own a home

It’s like the difference between calling someone wittless and uneducated.

One implies that’s just how the person is, the other implies a failing of society/family.

It’s another one of those whack a mole words people are pushing. Once everyone gives in and we start using unhoused, it will suddenly switch to uninhabited because it’s racists to houses or something!

It’s annoying as hell, because instead of fixing the issues we’re mastrubating about words and alienating people that we need to fix the issue.

If you are crashing on someone’s couch then you are housed but still homeless. It’s a bit of a dilution of the usual meaning of homeless but it also emphasises that housing is very precarious for the homeless.

A home is an abstract thing, a house is a quantifiable object.

Also it kind of implies that society should provide a house for them.

Homeless and “actually sleeps on the streets” are different things.