"Couch Surfing" = HOMELESS...call a thing a thing

“Couch Surfing” The term has been co-opted by sites like Air BnB and Vrbo as a user friendly term for people crashing with a host while traveling.

It is also the term used by social service homeless agencies when collecting analytics to determine who is in need of housing assistance. If you inform assessors that you are not technically on the street, because you might temporarily have been permitted to stay with a friend or relative, you are categorized as a ‘couch surfer’, therefore, not eligible or in need of funding for housing.

In 2020 over 326,000 Americans were recorded as sheltered homeless on a single night. In 2021 there was an increase of 8% in that number. Worldwide, over 150 million people are recorded as sheltered homeless.

Those statistics do not include the unsheltered homeless: Ie: Alice an her son Rueben in my novel - A BLIND EYE - who are evicted from their home and are reduced to temporarily living in their car.