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The terms historically used to describe them include bums, hoboes, migrants, street people, transients, tramps, and vagrants. Just as varied as the words we have used to describe them are the reasons many people have found themselves living in the land of opportunity without permanent residence.

The book considers homelessness and its distinctive character in three periods of American history: the era of tramps and hoboes in the late 1800s-early 1900s, the era of transients and migrants in the 1930s, and the era of homeless and street people in the last 40 years. It clarifies the multiple meanings of the word homeless today and demonstrates that homelessness is a symptom of more than one problem, leading to confusion about the issue of homelessness and hampering attempts to reduce its occurrence. Author Neil Larry Shumsky, PhD, also postulates that the treatment of homelessness in England before the colonization of North America laid the foundation of pervasive American attitudes and practices.