this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Are we doing that thing where one word sounds icky so we change it to a new word that will eventually sound icky?
Unhoused already sounds worse.
I think there’s room for discussion on the best term.
I choose unhoused because they often have homes, whether it’s tents or a broken down car or something else entirely. Calling them homeless denigrates the accommodations they’ve created for themselves on the edges of society.
This is the progressive equivalent to thoughts and prayers from conservatives. A meaningless gesture that makes the user feel better and that’s about all it does for solving the real problem of getting legitimate help for homeless folks that allows for some accountability on their part and starts cleaning up the city for the rest of the population to use again.
The popular term for that is euphemism treadmill.