Large numbers of vagabonds were among the convicts transported to the American colonies in the 18th century. During the 16th century in England, the state first tried to give housing to vagrants instead of punishing them, by introducing bridewells to take vagrants and train them for a profession. In the 17th and 18th centuries, these were replaced by workhouses but these were intended to discourage too much reliance on state help. United States
In the Antebellum South, the availability of slave labor made it difficult for poor white people to find work. To prevent poor white people from cooperating with enslaved black people, slaveowners policed poor whites with vagrancy laws.After the American Civil War, a large number of homeless men formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over the United States. In smaller towns, hobos temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations.The growing movement toward social concern sparked the development of rescue missions, such as the U.S. first rescue mission, the New York City Rescue Mission, founded in 1872 by Jerry and Maria McAuley. Modern
20th century
The Great Depression of the 1930s caused a devastating epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness in the United States. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the presidency from Herbert Hoover in 1933, he passed the New Deal, which greatly expanded social welfare, including providing funds to build public housing.
After the breakup of the USSR, the problem of homelessness sharpened dramatically, partially because of the legal vacuum of the early 1990s with some laws contradicting each other and partially because of a high rate of frauds in the realty market. In 1991 articles 198 and 209 of Russian criminal code which instituted a criminal penalty for not having permanent residence were abolished. In Moscow, the first overnight shelter for homeless was opened in 1992. In the late 1990s, certain amendments in law were implemented to reduce the rise in homelessness, such as the prohibition of selling last flat with registered children. In 2002, there were 300,000 homeless people in Moscow.Nevertheless, the state is still obliged to give permanent shelter for free to anybody who needs better living conditions or has no permanent registration, because the right to shelter is still included in the constitution. Several projects of special cheap social flats for those who failed to repay mortgages were proposed to facilitate mortgage market.In 2022, it was reported that Russian authorities were targeting homeless people to conscript them into the war in Ukraine. Popular culture
Homelessness in popular culture is depicted in various works. Films
Modern Times, 1936 film, shows negative effects of vagrancy laws. Cathy Come Home, 1966, shows the effects of homelessness on parenthood. God Bless the Child, 1988, made-for-TV movie about a single mother (Mare Winningham) living on the streets of New York City with her young daughter.