homeless

[ hohm-lis ]

adjective

1. without a home or without permanent housing:

   a homeless refugee.

noun

, (used with a plural verb)

1. Usually the homeless. Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. people who lack permanent housing or a fixed residence, collectively.

homeless

/ ˈhəʊmlɪs /

adjective

1. 1. having nowhere to live
   2. ( as collective noun; preceded by the )

      the homeless

Sensitive Note

There are a number of words used to label people who don’t have permanent housing. While the term homeless was used without controversy for some time, advocates for this population, many style guides, and some people who identify as members of this group now prefer other terms including unhoused, houseless, and unsheltered. The alternative terms to homeless each have a specific nuance of meaning. Unsheltered, for example, includes people who sleep in cars and under overpasses, but not people in temporary housing like city shelters. Houseless and unhoused both mean that a person lacks permanent housing, but may still be a member of a community that they call home, in which case the designation homeless is imprecise. Further, someone’s homeless status is often temporary, as expressed in the phrases “people moving through houselessness,” “people experiencing homelessness,” and “unsheltered people.” Nevertheless, the term homeless is easily understood and even preferred as a term of self-identification by many members of this community. The designation homeless is still widely used and only sometimes offensive or disparaging. However, one should be mindful of the negative connotation this word may have and the many unfortunate associations it has had with poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, or crime. The word should not be used as a euphemism for these other statuses and stigmatized conditions. Homeless should be used only in the strict denotative meaning, and alternative expressions that put the person first, like “an individual experiencing homelessness,” are often preferable.

Derived Forms

• ˈhomelessness, noun

Other Words From

• home·less·ly adverb
• home·less·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of homeless¹

First recorded before 1000; home ( def ) + -less ( def )

Example Sentences

Janey Rountree, the executive director of UCLA’s California Policy Lab and an advisor on the measure, has tried to address that problem by developing a data-driven strategy to identify people at risk of becoming homeless.

From Los Angeles Times

Another goal of Measure A is to reduce the number of people on the street suffering from severe mental illness, which according to the latest census afflicts more than 15,000 of the county’s homeless people.

From Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles County got a gift from voters: They passed Measure A, a half-cent-per-dollar sales tax that will provide a billion dollars a year for services and housing for homeless people.

From Los Angeles Times

Providing the help that homeless people need is a difficult, long and expensive task, and residents clearly still believe in that mission.

From Los Angeles Times

If we don’t want more homeless people on sidewalks, we have to invest in proposals like Measure A that stand a chance of resolving this horrible problem.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• houseless
• unhoused
• unsheltered