HoovervillesWhere do you go when you don't have a house to go to? During the Great Depression, thousands of Americans asked themselves this question. The American economy was at rock bottom, most people were laid off and the few who weren't saw their pay cut significantly. A large portion of the American population was no longer able to afford their housing. Many people went to live with family, but not everyone had a family capable of taking care of them. So where are these people going? The answer is Hoovervilles, Hoovervilles are groups of random makeshift shacks and anything else people may have thrown together for shelter. Most Hoovervilles were in larger cities because there were more job opportunities. Because there were so many people living in these camps, it was more difficult to control them. There was so much crime in Hoovervilles that authorities could not stop it, and sometimes even made it worse. The Hoovervilles were not very desirable places to live. The Hoovervilles were a huge burden on large cities such as; New York, Seattle and Chicago. Hooverville, Seattle's main city, was one of the largest, oldest, and best-documented cities in the country. It lasted ten years, from 1931 to 1941. (Hoovervilles and…np.pag.) It spanned just over 9 acres and housed approximately 1,200 homeless Americans who came to Seattle in search of work. They had even established their own unofficial government, which included an unofficial mayor. Seattle's Hooverville was much more civilized than New York's main Hooverville, located in Central Park. People were dying daily in Hooverville, New York. They were killed either by disease, by hunger, by accidents, or by murder. The scarcely resourced federal government... middle of paper ... housed thousands of Americans in the 1930s, even though Hoovervilles was not the most ideal place to live. The Hoovervilles were full of disease, crime, and death. A large portion of Americans would say that the Hoovervilles were bad things because of all the crime and deaths that occurred there, but what they don't realize is that the Hoovervilles were a great help for many of the victims of America's economic collapse as we know it. call it the Great Depression. Works Cited Gregory, James. “Hoovervilles and the Homeless” Depts.Washington.edu. November 19, 2013. The web. November 19, 2013 http://depts.washington.edu/depress/hooverville.shtml “Hoovervilles.” 2013. The History Channel website. November 15, 2013, 2:04 am http://www.history.com/topics/hoovervilles. “Hoovervilles.” us-history.com. November 21, 2013. The web. November 21, 2013 http://www.us-history.com/pages/h1642.html