Homelessness & Marginalization

Vagrant

• A general term for migratory people, often without permanent housing or jobs.
• Historically, so-called vagrancy laws in the US criminalized a wide variety of vaguely-defined behaviors that may have indicated that a person was unemployed or homeless, for example loitering, panhandling, and "wandering aimlessly."
• After the American Civil War, many states enacted vagrancy laws that in effect selectively targeted Black people who had recently been freed from slavery.
• Beginning in the 1960s, many states repealed vagrancy laws. However, states replaced them with similar laws prohibiting behaviors such as disorderly conduct and begging, thereby continuing to target populations experiencing homelessness and poverty.

Though perhaps less openly derogatory than other terms, "vagrant" still carries with it a history of legislative criminalization of homelessness and poverty, often implicitly targeting particular racial groups.

Hobo 

• The term began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to refer to itinerant, seasonal workers without stable housing, that used the railroads to move between cities and jobs.
• Still used today by those within the community, the term "hobo" was more specifically embraced by individuals as a self-identity term, referring to a specific community with its own way of life and culture.
• The increase in migratory and itinerant workers in the post-Civil War period helped build cities and railroad networks across the county.
• In the early twentieth century, "hobohemias" were central districts in cities where hobos congregated. A combination of the term ‘hobo’ and ‘bohemia’, these communities included teaching and trade lessons, published newspapers and flyers, organized groups of workers, and held public discussions on laws and individual rights.
• In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Chicago served as a major railway stop and gathering place for self-identified hoboes, and was the location of Hobo College, founded by social reformer and anarchist Ben Reitman. 

When the term is conflated with the “tramps” and “vagrants”, it obscures the nuance of the identity and community of the hobo culture and experiences. 

The romanticization of the term—in particular its association with a free-spirited, bohemian, countercultural, or intellectual lifestyle—could be problematic in that it obscures the difficult circumstances of those living with homelessness and poverty.

• Although sometimes conflated with "vagrant," "tramp," or "hobo," this term historically referred to a more specific category, connoting a homeless or poor person who neither traveled nor worked.

The homeless

• A term used to collectively refer to people experiencing housing insecurity.
• Used as a generalizing term that encompasses and conflates "bum," "vagrant" "tramp," or "hobo."
• Housing insecurity has many levels, from individuals temporarily staying with friends or family, to living in a vehicle, to living in encampments with others.
• Housing insecurity is experienced by individuals in every city across the globe and throughout time. Many cities have laws or policies that criminalize aspects of the experience, such as sleeping in a car overnight or restricting access to restrooms.

Using a general term to group together individuals experiencing housing insecurity removes the nuance of their situations and obscures the societal, economic, and political factors that contribute to the problem of stable housing.

Advocates distinguish between a ‘home’ and a ‘house’, and that homes typically refer to the feeling of a space and a sense of belonging. Tent encampments and other groups can provide a sense of belonging, but that is distinct from the stability and security provided by the structure of a house. Hence the use of the term ‘unhoused’ or ‘those experiencing housing insecurities.’

Tramp

• Migratory non-workers; "tramping" referred to the act of traveling from place to place, often by railroad.
• Unlike "hobo," which implied an itinerant worker, "tramp" connoted someone who merely traveled but never worked, or who avoided working whenever possible.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries this term was used derogatorily, and sometimes written or spoken of in terms of a pestilent social nuisance in need of elimination, as in the "tramp problem." 

At the same time the romanticized nature of the term is problematic in that it obscures the difficult circumstances of those living with homelessness and poverty.

Poor farm

and

Poor house ("Poorhouse"; "Workhouse"; "Almshouse"; "Poor asylum")

• Publicly funded farms and housing facilities, usually run at the city or county level, intended for the employment of poor or homeless individuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
• Declined in use after the Social Security Act took effect in 1935, after which counties and cities were no longer primarily responsible for providing welfare to individuals.
• These places commonly employed and housed people with chronic illnesses (e.g. consumption; tuberculosis) and people with disabilities.
• In Illinois, each county in the Chicago region established its own poorhouse; one of the most frequently discussed examples is the poorhouse at Dunning, IL (later known as the Dunning Asylum), which was moved to Oak Forest, IL in 1910 due to overcrowding, thereafter, known as the Cook County Poor House and Poor Farm.

Along with asylums, poor farms and poor houses were in many respects conceived of as correctional institutions for people living with poverty, disability, and mental illness (often with the implication of institutionalizing them to rid regular society of them).

The seemingly neutral nature of the these terms could obscure the abuse suffered by individuals at the hands of these institutions.