Why ‘homeless’ is giving way to ‘unhoused’: a history of a term shift

The use of the term unhoused has grown exponentially in the last few years, and those who have adopted it say it emphasizes a lack of affordable housing

Beverly Graham was sitting in an executive leadership class in Seattle in 2006 when she first recalls using the word unhoused".

The director of OSL, a non-profit that provides meals to food-insecure Seattle residents, Graham hadn't planned on speaking up. But her classmates - two dozen regional business leaders - were discussing the number of homeless people in the area, and their perspective felt very different from the one she had gained after years of helping vulnerable Seattleites. She had to pipe up.

... for know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the sea's worth."