China Renames Homeless People ‘Dispersed Persons’ as Economic Pressures Mount

Critics say the move is an attempt to obscure rising poverty, unemployment, and growing numbers of homeless rural migrant workers.

A Chinese migrant worker carrying rubbish walks on a railway in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Dec. 6, 2004. China Photos/GettyImages

As China’s economic slowdown deepens, a growing number of unemployed rural migrant workers are being forced into homelessness in the cities. Now, a quiet change in official language is drawing scrutiny.

China’s rubber-stamp congress introduced revisions to its draft Social Assistance Law, including a seemingly minor but symbolic shift: replacing the term “homeless beggars” with “dispersed persons,” according to an April 27 report by Chinese regime newspaper The People’s Daily. The regime stated that its goal is to streamline workflows and improve services for the people.

For critics, the change is not trivial.

Analysts who spoke to The Epoch Times say it reflects a broader effort by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to soften the appearance of worsening economic conditions, while sidestepping deeper socioeconomic challenges such as rising unemployment and weak domestic demand.

Linguistic Shift Amid Economic Pressure

In the Past year, videos circulating on Chinese social media have shown rural migrant workers sleeping in train stations, under bridges, and on sidewalks after failing to find work in major cities.

Against that backdrop, the terminology change has sparked backlash.

Wu Shaoping, a U.S.-based Chinese human rights lawyer, told The Epoch Times the move fits a long-standing pattern.

“The CCP has always relied on wordplay and propaganda,” he said. “Renaming ‘beggars’ as ‘dispersed persons’ is an attempt to conceal the reality that more people in China are falling into poverty as the economy deteriorates.”

Under the CCP’s official narrative, extreme poverty has been eradicated, and the country has achieved a “moderately prosperous society.” Critics say that the rebranding undermines those claims.

Jie Lijian, chairman of the China Democracy Party International Alliance, told The Epoch Times that the change signals the collapse of those narratives.

People unable to find work sleep on the streets on a winter night in Shenzhen in late 2025. Video screenshot by The Epoch Times

The CCP has a long history of labeling and managing migrant populations.

In the 1980s, rural migrants flooding into cities were referred to as “blind drifters,” a term implying uncontrolled and undesirable movement. A 1982 regulation formalized the label “homeless beggars,” allowing the regime to detain and repatriate such individuals.

That system, known as “custody and repatriation,” was abolished in 2003 after the death of Sun Zhigang, a young man who was beaten to death in a detention facility in Guangzhou. The case triggered national outrage and led to the creation of “assistance stations” in place of detention.

Jie said people are aware of these conditions and, under CCP internet censorship, use joking language to satirize the authorities.

“If you don’t solve the economic problems or deal with the issues, but instead make a big fuss over wording, that will only make more people resentful,” Jie added.

Hidden Numbers, Questions About Accountability

Official data offers only a partial picture.

China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs reported via Chinese news platform The Paper that authorities assisted people in temporary distress more than 700,000 times in 2024 and about 625,000 times in 2025. It did not publish comprehensive statistics on the total homeless population.

A 2021 report on missing persons found that more than 1 million people went missing in 2020, with the number reaching 3.94 million in 2016, according to Chinese state media China Daily. Since then, nationwide data has largely disappeared from public view.

Wu said the lack of transparency raises serious concerns.

A homeless woman sleeps beneath an advertising billboard promoting new urban development in Beijing on Aug. 21, 2003. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

“What’s more frightening for the homeless than being renamed is physically disappearing,” he said.

In early April, the Chinese communist regime censored a viral video alleging that thousands of people died or disappeared at a detention facility in southern China. The incident reignited longstanding allegations of abuse, unexplained deaths, and even human trafficking by the regime—though such allegations are difficult to independently verify due to strict information controls.

Wu says that replacing detention centers with assistance stations did not fundamentally change the system.

“It’s the same structure with a different name,” he said. “The personnel remain, and accountability has never been fully addressed.”

Concerns have extended beyond homelessness.

In March 2026, a resident of Guangzhou, China, submitted an online petition calling for a suspension and review of China’s organ transplant system. The initiative was swiftly suppressed by the CCP.

While direct links between such concerns and the homeless population remain unproven, Jie says that vulnerable groups face heightened risks in opaque systems.

“In the past, some young people who had gone to assistance stations seeking help were instead detained inside and subjected to various forms of mistreatment,” he said.

Jie also alleged that corruption is involved in the system, with officials inflating the number of people receiving aid—turning one individual into 20 on paper—and then dividing the support funds among themselves.

Ning Haizhong and Yi Ru contributed to this report.