Poorhouse
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Image:Poorhse.gifA poorhouse is a publicly maintained facility for the support and housing of dependent or needy persons, typically run by a local government entity such as a county or municipality.
In Victorian times (for Britain itself, see Poor Law, but also elsewhere), poverty was seen as a dishononouring, guilty state (lack of the highly praised virtue of industry being the presumed reason), justifying a rather uncharitable treatment, known from the Dickensian portrayal of a dehumanized regime resembling a Reformatory (children could also be kept there, with their family or alone), or rather penal labour, as the poor could be put to hard, manual labour and were subject to physical punishment.
The resident poor's lot was often not much better then in a reformatory, largely depending on the authorities and the staff, elsewhere in the world either, e.g. in Saratoga County (New York) the 137 "inmates" of all sexes and ages could be beaten.
The term is commonly applied to such a facility that houses the destitute elderly; institutions of this nature were widespread in the United States prior to the adoption of the Social Security program in the 1930s. Facilities housing indigents who are not elderly are typically referred to as homeless shelters, or simply "shelters," in current usage.
Often the poorhouse was situated on the grounds of a poor farm on which able-bodied residents were required to work; such farms were common in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries; it could even be part of the same economic complex as a prison farm and other penal and/or 'charitable' public institutions.
See also
External Link
Jack London's firsthand account of life and poorhouses in the 1902 East End of London