So… this is an incredibly good example of the distance between the academia, policy think tanks, and ideology that powers the progressive movement and the people the movement seeks to serve.
I understand you are coming from a good place, but it really doesn’t. Im not picking on you. This is a PSA:
“Unhoused” does not provide more dignity and less stigma. It obscures reality and confers the moral license to look away.
I spent years actively volunteering with the homeless. I’ve cooked for them, cried with them, washed their feet, raised money for programs, spent the night with them at the cold weather shelter and so on. My wife volunteers with a homeless support program. My mother was homeless, and died as a result of her homelessness. So that’s my bona fides on this.
People who actually spend years with the homeless mostly hate the term “unhoused.” It reduces an extraordinarily complex and devastating syndrome to a real estate problem.
They are not just ‘unhoused’ people. They are homeless people, which is to say they are trapped in a self-reinforcing process of slow dehumanization, spiritual/psychological decay and isolation.
To call them “unhoused” implies that the problem can be solved by providing housing only, or housing first, and that simply isn’t true. In some ways that’s as bad as sending them back to the jungle or to jail, or perhaps worse than jail, since jail offers the remote but occasional possibility of stabilization and rehab.
Anyway, sorry to go off- but I speak for a lot of people on this one. Just say homeless.