in 1952

[HereSince1628]

16. In the 50's and early 60'We called them "bums". There was a "bum" camp along an abandoned rail spur

just on the north side of my home town. It was immediately across the river from the city dump. I don't think that positioning was only due to the tracks being abandoned. I think the "bums" scavenged in the dump for things that the salvage yard would buy.

As kids we fished along the river bank and encountered those guys...pretty rough looking. It frightened our mothers, but we never had any real problem. "Nick the bum" was locally well known and a year round homeless resident, he died when his knocked together shelter burned with him in it.

In the mid-60's the state hospital that was in town got into cutting beds and 'mainstreaming' its patients. Suddenly there were a dozen or so homeless people on the downtown streets during the day (it was a town of ~30,000), mostly then went into a couple of church basements at night.

They were supposed to be housed in a flophouse sort of hotel, but lots of them didn't like that place.