What is a homeless man?

I'm not sure what this means.

Rachel Lucas: "If you’re a 16-year-old girl and you have sex with a homeless man with the express PURPOSE of becoming pregnant, I am judging your ass off.

She's, of course, talking about one of those girls in a Massachusetts high school made a pact to get pregnant. The news is full of reports that one of them tried to get pregnant by having sex with a 23 year old homeless man.

I understand the Rachel Lucas comment about being judgemental. What I don't understand is the oft repeated statement about the 23 year old homeless man.

The official definition of homeless is one promoted by advocates for the homeless who will get more funding if we count more people homeless than less. So the official definition tends to cover a wide range of situations.

homeless person” includes—
an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and


an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is —


a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);


an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or


a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

A liberal interpretation of this definition would include a 23 year old recent college graduate who has a teaching job in Cleveland starting in August and is spending the summer in Wichita sleeping on a friends couch.
It's not permanant and the couch is not a regular sleeping accomodation for human beings.
So don't think you automatically know that the news reports are talking about when they make a reference to a 23 year old homeless man.