Homelessness, International Perspectives on

The Terminology of Homelessness

Words used to describe homeless persons offer some insight into the varying conceptualizations of the [Page 240]term, as illustrated in Table 1 above. In countries such as India, the term for people living outside without shelter is roofless, a term that does not imply the social pathology so often associated with the word homeless. Developing countries tend to discuss the issue of lack of adequate housing from the point of view of rural-to-urban migration, or as the result of natural disaster or war. For Western nations, homelessness historically has been linked to alcoholism (as seen on the skid rows of major cities, for example). In the latter part of the twentieth century, homelessness was tied to widespread substance abuse and the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, coupled with the gentrification of the cities and a decrease in governmental support for social housing.

In Montreal, Quebec, les itinérants is the term used by the religious and advocacy communities; the newspaper sold on the streets of Montreal is L'It-inéraire. But the word sans-abri (without shelter, or literally “without shade”) is used in professional and academic circles. Some people have suggested that sans-abri came into vogue in Montreal after the widespread media attention to the United Nations 1987 International Year of Shelter for the Homeless (Glasser, Fournier, and Costopoulos 1999).

Elsewhere, too, terminology reflects local conditions. Street children are often referred to by the job they do for survival, such as the “parking boys” of Kenya. It is interesting to note that originally the South American Spanish term gamino may have implied a petite and appealing child on the street, whereas now the word has taken on negative connotations, hinting at lawlessness. The Finnish term puliukko indicates the close historical relationship of alcoholism and homelessness. Finally, a bidonville (“tin city”) may become a new community (that is, a pueblo jóven) with infrastructure support such as clean water, waste removal, and electricity.

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