The purpose of the study. The article examines the problems of interpretation of the concept of housing in various branches of law, examines the relationship between the term and the concept in the textual legal space. The purpose of the work is to analyze the existing definitions of the concept of housing in the diversified legislation for possible further unification of this concept in the legal text space, analysis of the use of the lexical unit housing as a term and concept. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted research, the author comes to the conclusion that it is possible to develop a single unified concept of housing for close or related areas of law (for criminal and criminal procedure law, for operational investigative activities), guided by the optimization method specified in the article. From the point of view of linguistic correctness, the author recommends the use of the phrase «dwelling» in the sectoral legal aspects, and in the general legal context, the phrase concept.