A History of Homelessness in the U.S.

Recommendable!

"... In the late 19th and early 20th century, the common terms we used for them were hobo, bum, tramp. Those were terms that now strike us as very un-PC, offensive, but also, if you really dig into the literature from that time, denoted specific qualities and were, in fact, terms that these guys used among themselves. A hobo, for example, was a guy who worked and moved around the country pursuing work; a tramp was a guy who moved around the country but didn't work; and a bum, who didn't work and didn't move. In a way, these terms, if you push past the kinds of offensiveness, what I think you find interesting about these terms is they have nothing to do with these guys' housing situation, really. They're defined in terms of their disposition to work or just where they are, their place in society.
Moving further into the 20th century, we find less working amongst the "homeless" population, so the hobos and tramps kind of go away, but the bums stay. ..."

A History of Homelessness: 10 Blocks podcast | City Journal M[anhattan] I[nstitute]  senior fellow Stephen Eide joins Brian Anderson to discuss the meaning of homelessness, how the concept has evolved over the course of U.S. history, and the public-policy roots of the nation’s current homelessness crisis.