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

An audit of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has found that lax accounting procedures resulted in the failure to reclaim millions of dollars in cash advances to contractors and to pay other contractors on time, even when funds were available.

From Los Angeles Times

At least one person is confirmed to have died from the storm — a woman in her 50s who was killed after a large tree fell on her homeless encampment — while hundreds of thousands of others in the affected area are without power.

From Salon

One longtime homeless resident, Oudom Thammavong, said he would take shelter over being jailed.

From Los Angeles Times

Similar to L.A.’s Skid Row, Santa Clara Street has long been home to a heavy concentration of homeless campers because of its proximity to Poverello House, a nonprofit that offers three meals a day and access to services.

From Los Angeles Times

One speaker, a mother, said she was on the verge of being homeless again after timing out of the county’s shelters.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• houseless
• unhoused
• unsheltered