'Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me' is a common phrase used by children in answer against relentless verbal assault by bullies in Britain. I was never quite convinced by this phrase because some names do hurt. However, not all names people call you hurt as the crucial thing is how and with what intention the name is used. In the final analysis, it depends on the particular situation. At times, there is no malice or impure intention behind the use of a name.
There is a Russian saying: “You can call a pot any name, just don't break it by putting it into the oven.” This is the answer to that character of Beckett's novel Watt who worries about how to name a pot or name himself! This is why recent attempts to rename the homeless as the houseless is hardly going to crown a homeless person with a new sense of dignity.
However, for around a decade some advocates have gone as far to claim that it is better to use the word 'houseless' than 'homeless'. They state the term houseless implies the person him or herself is the main problem as it reinforces 'the blame the victim' accusation. They claim this term is better because it more readily points to the structural causes such as unaffordable housing, real estate fraud, extortionate rent rackets, low wages, and possibly an irrational, absurd, and unfair capitalist system. Nevertheless, the term unhousing is not new. According to the etymologist Jason Greenberg it was used by William Shakespeare in his play Othello.
Elizabeth Bowen, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo (in America) states that using the term houseless instead of homeless would help humanize the homeless. She argues – ‘It is a powerful way to remind us that the issue is really a housing problem…
…I think it is useful: there can be a tendency to think about the homeless in more individualistic ways like it is a pervasive failing or the result of their life choices, when really the more important thing is that we just don't have enough affordable housing in the country.”
I don't see how this new euphemism is anyhow more profoundly humanistic or beneficial. The term ‘unhoused’ is still a very abstract term that will never do justice to the full integrity of a person. Tinkering with words won't improve the condition of the homeless. It sounds so cosmetic. I doubt it would lead to more public awareness on the homeless question but would rather confuse people. The main point is not so much what you call a person but how you call him or her. A person can innocuously name a person badly without any intention of malice or contempt. The character Juliet in William Shakespeare's play but it bluntly when she laments:
“What's in a name! that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd
Retain what dear perfection which he owes
Without that title -Romeo, doff thy name;
And for thy name, which is no part of thee
Take all myself.”
(“Romeo and Juliet,” by William Shakespeare, Act 2, Scene I, p. 254.)
In other words, it does not really matter what name you call someone if no offence or malice is intended. We tend to overstate the power and impact of labeling people. Some linguists go to extremes by claiming language determines being. That might be partly true but you could equally claim the opposite that people also determine language. The advantage of the former conclusion is flattering for linguists because they can go on to emphasize the importance of studying languages to understand a culture. They make the absurd claim that you can't in anyway understand a person unless you know their language. There is even a belief that if you rename yourself you can a make a refreshing start in life and become a new person. In contrast, if you have a bad name it can hinder you future. In this case, perhaps we are entering the realm of magic and folklore.
The problem is that the term homelessness started off as a neutral term…
…And it still is for many people. Most of the homeless in America call themselves homeless. Now some people claim the term has been rendered negative because of the abusive way it is used. But the same could be said for past terms to describe the homeless like 'bum,' 'hobo' and 'down and out,' to name but a few. Hobo was once a respectable word to describe a homeless person. Despite the later negative connotations, the American writer Jack Kerouac did not find it pejorative to use.
Just read his work “The Vanishing American Hobo” in which he writes with acute and far-sighted perception of how the term became negative:
“In Brueghel's time children danced around the hobo, he wore huge and raggy clothes and always looked straight ahead indifferent to the children, and the families didn't mind the children playing with the hobo, it was a natural thing. But today mothers hold tight their children when the hobo passes through town because of what the newspapers made the hobo to be -- the rapist, the strangler, child eater -- stay away from strangers! They'll give you poison candy. Though the Breughel hobo and the hobo today are the same, the children are different” (Jack Kerouac, “The Vanishing American Hobo,” p. 34).
Despite those new negative connotations which arose from usage of the word hobo, Kerouac did not see the need to invent a new word.
In fact, you could argue that the word homeless acknowledges the plight of the homeless much more articulately and clearly than the word houseless. For being made homeless is not just a matter of not having a roof over your head or living in a house but feeling like an alien everywhere. The word home encompasses more than just a house but a feeling of warmth, heat, sense of belonging and being part of a community.
A person can feel homeless even if he or she is housed. An old song explains: “A house is not a home without the two of us.” The term homeless more readily acknowledges how a person suffers from harshly enforced trespassing laws where a person can't go for a casual walk without risk of being mugged or stopped and searched by the police. For the word home has many diverse positive meanings which the word house can hardly surpass. And the homeless and so many others need homes not houses…
…In a home you feel real genuine warmth, freedom, and inner peace. The same cannot be said of house which simply suggests existing between four walls and a roof above.
Using the word houseless needlessly complicates things because most people understand a house not as a typical place of residence. While a house is unattached or connected to other houses, many people tend to live in blocks of flats or simply bedsits. A person in Britain won't regard his flat as a house! Calling someone houseless would just stump many people who dwell in blocks of flats who imagine a house as some huge building like a mansion or detached building. At least when you use the word homeless you acknowledge different kinds of living abodes.
Sooner or later people will begin to see the negative connotations around the new word houseless. They will change the name again because some people will use it in an abusive way. Then homelessness will just continue as usual. It is window dressing indeed. We have what the psychologist Steven Pinker called 'a euphemism treadmill.' This is the process by which euphemisms fall into disuse and are replaced by new ones, as the old ones become socially unacceptable over time. Pinker coined this term in 1994 (euphemism treadmill - Wiktionary, the free dictionary).
I think we should not be ashamed of calling a group of people hobo or homeless. What really matters is that we don't think the term defines a person's identity and we should call them their own names in a respectful way. In fact, we should modestly ask a person how he or she would like to be named. For in the final analysis, terms such as homeless or houseless are just abstract terms to make it easier for policy makers to identify social problems and help resolve them.
Again, tinkering with such words won't in anyway significantly help the homeless.
Sources used:
“Euphemism Treadmill,” coined by Stephen Pinker, Wikipedia, euphemism treadmill - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jack Kerouac, “The Vanishing American Hobo,” 2018 reprint edition, New York: Penguin-Random House, 2018.
William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet,” Act 2, Scene I, 1994, Hertfordshire, Britain: The Wordsworth Poetry Library.