HoovervillesWhere do you go when you have no home to go to? During the Great Depression, thousands of Americans asked themselves this question. The American economy was at an all-time low, most people were laid off and the few who weren't saw a large decrease in their wages. Much of the American population could no longer afford their homes. Many people went to live with families, but not everyone had a family that could take care of them. So where do these people go? The answer is hooverville, hooverville are clusters of random makeshift shacks and whatever else people have managed to cobble together for shelter. Most Hoovervilles were located in larger cities because there were more job opportunities. Since so many people lived in these camps, it was more difficult to control them. There was so much crime going on in Hoovervilles that officials couldn't stop it, and sometimes even made things worse. The Hoovervilles were not very desirable places to live. The Hoovervilles were a huge burden on larger cities such as; New York, Seattle and Chicago. Seattle's main Hooverville was one of the largest, longest-running and best-documented in the nation. It stood for ten years, from 1931 to 1941. (Hoovervilles and… np.pag.) It was just over 9 acres and contained approximately 1,200 homeless Americans who came to Seattle looking for work. They had even established their own unofficial government, including an unofficial mayor. Seattle's Hooverville was much more civilized than New York City's main Hooverville, located in Central Park. People died every day in New York's Hooverville. They were killed by disease, starvation, accidents or murder. The small amount of resources that the federal government… half of the paper… housed thousands of Americans during the 1930s, even though Hooverville was not the ideal place to live. Hooverville was full of disease, crime and death. Most Americans would say that Hooverville is a bad thing because of all the crimes and deaths that have occurred there, but what they don't realize is that Hooverville has been a huge help to a large number of victims of American economic decline which we call the Great Depression. Works Cited Gregory, James. “Hoovervilles and Homelessness” Depts.Washington.edu. November 19, 2013. 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. Web. November 21, 2013 http://www.us-history.com/pages/h1642.html