I live in New York City, the richest city in the world. Every day when I walked to high school, I would go by brownstone homes that list for tens of millions of dollars on the absurdly expensive real estate market. Yet just down the block towards 6th Avenue, two homeless people—a man and a woman each probably in their 40s—lay wrapped up in a winter coat, sitting on haphazardly laid out cardboard. Ironically, the storefront they sat in front of was Chase Bank, the richest bank in the world. This scene was and is not the only time I’ve witnessed the epidemic of homelessness up close. Indeed, as a New Yorker, it’s easy to become numb to seeing people struggle for their lives out on the street, and they people themselves start to feel dehumanized.
In my junior year of high school, 10 classmates of mine and I were given the opportunity to study the issue of homelessness somewhere in the country other than New York City, and we chose Los Angeles. So, for four days that April we and two teachers traveled around LA, talking to missions, nonprofits, and most importantly, homeless people. Looking back on this trip three and a half years later and being in a course specifically about place and space has altered my perspective on homelessness.
In the seemingly-futile effort to combat homelessness, there has emerged a debate over how to describe the actual people in that situation. Should they be referred to as “homeless”, as was common throughout recent history? Or, should we refer to them as “unhoused”, which has gained steam lately?
The first thing I noticed when walking through Skid Row (with a guide who knew some residents of course) was how concentrated everything was: unlike New York, where there are tons of homeless people but they are scattered throughout the city, most of Los Angeles’ homeless population lives in Skid Row. That’s roughly 4.3 square miles of homelessness. It is so packed that residents have built remarkable encampments with whatever resources they can find; they are even sometimes multiple stories tall. In a way, these encampments could be described as a “home”. Many residents have lived in the same part of Skid Row for decades and would rather live on the streets than be taken into a homeless shelter, which they view as dangerous. During my tour, one man we talked to even expressed a sense of community and solidarity between residents.
This is not to trivialize these people’s situation; the obvious caveat is that these people do not live in houses. They lack many basic necessities like plumbing, air conditioning, and heating units (one surprising fact is that hypothermia is one of the leading causes of death among Skid Row residents because of the heat differential between night and day).
On the one hand, referring to Skid Row residents as “unhoused” is less harsh than “homeless” and it recognizes what little they do have. In this way, it is more respectful. Among the residents we talked to, nearly all of them asked for a basic level of respect from outsiders.
Initially, I agreed that “unhoused” might be the proper term because on the surface, it seems technically more correct and, as just mentioned, respectful. Yet three years later, my view is that any discussion over what to call Skid Row residents is counterproductive. It is akin to politicians squabbling over insignificant details as a tactic to distract from addressing more direct solutions to the problem. Further, I believe that “unhoused” is simply a more diluted word for “homelessness”, and thus could perversely cause the public to think the homelessness crisis is less pressing than it really is.
References
-https://www.yahoo.com/now/indelible-mark-shame-l-pivots-093018170.html
-https://blanchethouse.org/homeless-houseless-unhoused-glossary-about-homelessness/#:~:text=In%20recent%20years%20advocates%20and,experiencing%20homelessness%20or%20housing%20insecurity.
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skid_Row,_Los_Angeles
-https://urm.org/about/faqs/about-skid-row/
-My own experience seeing Skid Row
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