I don't like the descriptive term "homeless".

[delrem]

I don't like it that someone can give a few bucks to someone who's hurting, or just in need, then follow them with a camera and post a youtube vid of the encounter, asking for donations and tweets and followers and receiving accolades for being so sensitive, depending on whether the "homeless dude" did well or badly according as the judgement of a bunch of people watching on their samsung tabs.

I never liked the descriptive term "homeless". To my ears, and I've been there, it sounds like the ultimate insult. The ultimate denial.

[daredtowork]

1. I agree it's exploitative, but

how else to keep the plight of the homeless before the middle class mind? People have the attention of a gnat, and people at the poverty level who receive "means-tested" aid basically have no voice in government because they aren't taxpayers (past or future doesn't count) and don't provide big campaign donations. A few heartstrings pulled could translate into a vote to keep food stamps.

[Hekate]

2. The "ultimate denial" of what? What euphemism would you like to use for someone...

...who is homeless? Liberated to live under a bridge? On permanent camp-out? Open-air addict?

Is following the roofless around with a camera what you would call a common problem? Or was it something that one person did?

Best of luck in the future in maintaining your non-camping-out status.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. I think it refers to this video:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017234208

[JonLP24]

4. It was the term I used for myself when I was homeless

I know many who currently are who also use the term for themselves.

I haven't heard of those videos but something like that would certainly bother me. I could never bring myself around to panhandle, telemarketing, asking people for something. A friend regularly does it near the freeway, she got busted for "stopping or remaining" in the median one time. She asks me to go all-the-time but I say no which would basically be me to watch her panhandle, I hear vets who point it out on their signs make decent money sometimes--I still couldn't even try.

Aside, from the term--the behavior or idea to record themselves giving change.. I just don't get it. Say yes or now and move on.

[TheKentuckian]

5. Dwelling impaired or some such seems too cutesy to me. The problem isn't the name but the situation.

I've been there, the last thing on my mind was such a thing and the first was where am I going to go tonight.

[bemildred]

6. It's a euphemism for "poor" or "impoverished".

This being Amurka, we don't have any poverty here because our economy is run so well. We have "homeless" people.

[Android3.14]

7. It is what it is

We simply dislike when the universe refuses to comply with the human concept of "ought to be".

[Kalidurga]

8. Well it would be better to describe the system that causes this

But, then no one would understand what you are referring to specifically. This is how we punish people who don't do what we think they should do it's pretty simple. If a woman dares to have children and she isn't wealthy and not married then of course she doesn't deserve a decent place to live neither do her children even if she works two jobs. If a man goes is in the military and comes back damaged and can't hold down a job then of course he deserves to be homeless. If someone uses drugs and ends up homeless of course it's their fault they really should have had better parents or not been traumatized to the point that using drugs was the only way they could cope.

That's the problem people assume if someone is homeless that they somehow deserve it because of something they did. If the majority of people understood that people don't just wake up one day and say you know what I would really rather live in a shelter or screw this homed lifestyle I wanna sleep under a bridge, they might feel compelled to do something other than judge. The shame of homelessness isn't on the person that is homeless it's on people who believe that another person deserves to not have shelter.