The Prime Minister used his first speech in office to launch an urgent national drive to end rough sleeping at the earliest opportunity, setting out a bold ambition to tackle one of the starkest injustices in the country. This will be backed from day one by an additional £340 million – taking overall funding to record levels.
They are technically slightly different terms. Someone can be homeless by choice. They could also be homeless, but have somewhere to stay (e.g. a shelter). Rough sleeping refers to people who have to sleep outside, without it being a choice on their part.
The term has had a lot of creep. It’s akin to how the word retarded changed from a medical description to an insult.
Its really such a poor choice of words. Why try to invent new words for the exact same thing? The only thing that comes to mind in this case is strategic manipulation.
Somehow I’d never run across the phrase “rough sleeping” as a term for homelessness before.
They are technically slightly different terms. Someone can be homeless by choice. They could also be homeless, but have somewhere to stay (e.g. a shelter). Rough sleeping refers to people who have to sleep outside, without it being a choice on their part.
The term has had a lot of creep. It’s akin to how the word retarded changed from a medical description to an insult.
Its really such a poor choice of words. Why try to invent new words for the exact same thing? The only thing that comes to mind in this case is strategic manipulation.
It’s a subcategory of homelessness, because homelessness takes many forms not all of which involve sleeping on the street.