Previously: Nazis Fuck off & media: The Truth About Donald Trump's Racism by Kat Blaque

December 05, 2024

Homeless is not an insult, houseless is not a treadmill

TLDR: Don’t be blue MAGA, don’t go looking to get offended by random ~woke~ words like houseless.

There’s a meme going around about the terms “houseless” and “unhoused”. Yall clearly don’t know what this means so I gotta explain. Unhoused/houseless is NOT a nicer, less offensive replacement for “homeless”. We still use the word homeless, it is not offensive. It’s not just jargon of the left either, liberal and less partisan NGOs use it too.

An unhoused person is sleeping in the street or outside often. They have little to no access to running water, electricity, nor any privacy, no doors to shut.

A homeless person has some options. maybe a couch to sleep on, a non-YMCA place to shower, change or do laundry, etc. They are at risk of becoming unhoused. but typically under a roof before dark that isn’t a shelter. Homeless is not offensive. Homeless is not offensive. I have been homeless. I have not ever been houseless.

You can have a house but no home. This happens often in LGBTQ+ youth rejected by their families. They are likely to be able to (almost literally) reside in the closet of their family’s home. They’re housed but vulnerable to losing their housing for being who they are. Some shelters will attempt to return the runaway teen “home,” return them to their abusers. It’s a similar situation in domestic abuse. They are homeless, not houseless (yet?) and the places for them to flee could be so bad, maybe they should stay.

It’s also possible for the unhoused to have a home but no house. This is a helpful concept when describing abuses of government and NGO shelters. EG: the government criminalizes sleeping outside and separates families in gender segregated housing. Or they refuse to abandon their pets they cannot bring into housing. Shelters might abuse and try to convert the unhoused to religions. Or try to get them out of town so they’re less visible to rich bitches and tourists when they depend on infrastructure, table scraps, personal connections, etc in that area.

In these cases we explain the unhoused have a home they won’t leave for housing. Perhaps the home is a community or camp where they can be with their family. or a parking lot with benevolent private security who won’t summon cops. These places can be safer than shelters.

YMMV from place to place on exactly the qualities of homelessness and houselessness. This is effected by variations and local factors like weather. Regardless, houseless & homeless reflect differences in material conditions.

Again, homeless is not offensive, we are not policing language with this jargon. We don’t expect normies to know the difference between homeless and houseless. If someone does that to you rudely they are just a pedantic asshole. Or, maybe they are not an asshole, they’re somebody who made a mistake when they thought you’d care. Shitty liberal gossip about the left just loves to do this– decide some random thing they don’t understand is virtue signaling… especially when that call to virtue signal is coming from inside their house.

The irony is (in my experience): one of the few matters when liberals might actually listen somewhat, are suggestions for respectful language. Not like instead of “homeless” but more like don’t call your sportsball team the Redskins.

We could have a whole conversation where I have many suggestions on actions to take, books to read, serious working meetings, socials for less pressure than meetings, protests, research to do, serves to hand the unhoused a plate, local government interventions like public testimony…

…and please come to the meeting but don’t keep calling it a powwow. I know you mean well but that’s not cute. Just change one tiny little word, please…

That last thing is the only thing they will remember or give one shit about.

Changing some words we use, like avoiding slurs, is a bare minimum. When we do this (when we actually do it and aren’t being lied about as in the term houseless) it’s an ask to be just a bit nicer. I’m not trying to hand them unrealistic expectations to change the entire world overnight through vocabulary alone. These people themselves bring in strange expectations for small and symbolic gestures. They come in trying to manifest change, they’re only interested in making trivial changes, and make their unmet expectations our problem. Does lying and believing anything you hear about the left make you feel better about liberal impotence in the election?

The democratic party can’t turn out voters in part because their allyship is superficial. Their leadership in culture wars resembles MAGA more every day. Getting mad at random words is peak MAGA shit, STFU. For many reasons, mostly not our doing, leftists cast a bigger shadow then we are. So you might not be aware, but there’s not actually not enough of us to change the course for you! With the recruitment, this might change, but not likely. Hopes and prayers 😜