Street people are people who live a public life on the streets of a city. Street people are frequently

homeless Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

, sometimes

mentally ill A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

, and often have a transient lifestyle. The delineation of street people is primarily determined by residential arrangement and their location in the urban setting.

Well-known street people

Examples of well-known street people are José María López Lledín who lived a public life on the streets of

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

during the 1950s, Mr. Butch of Boston,

Leslie Cochran Albert Leslie Cochran (June 24, 1951March 8, 2012) was an American homeless man, peace activist, cross-dresser, urban outdoorsman, and outspoken critic of police treatment of the homeless. Cochran was known in Austin as Leslie. Cochran was consi ...

of Austin, Juan of Seattle, or

Louis Thomas Hardin Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), known professionally as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, performer, Music theory, music theoretician, poet and inventor of musical instruments. Largely self-taught as a c ...

("Moondog") who was a street musician, inventor, and later homeless person in the 1940s through to 1970s in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Character of street people

Contemporary street people in the United States include

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

, some of whom may be

beggar Begging (also panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public place ...

s who often ask for spare change on the streets; bag ladies who often have all their possessions in a shopping cart which accompanies them. They also may include street performers, and people with chronic

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

. The term street people is used somewhat loosely and may be used simply to refer to eccentric people who live in Bohemian neighborhoods.

Code of the Road

Street people are said to have an unwritten code or set of rules that govern interaction between street people. Referred to as the "Code of the Road" it emerged from the Hobo camps of the depression era to encompass urban street people. The "Code of the Road" was detailed in Xploited Magazine.

As a social problem

Poor economic and social conditions can result in accumulations of the homeless, often called street people, in certain neighborhoods. This may result in revival of

vagrancy Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants (also known as bums, vagabonds, rogues, tramps or drifters) usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, scavenging, petty theft, temporar ...

laws, or similar laws which may prohibit lying or sitting on the street. Results and attitudes vary, especially as liberal communities attempt to grapple with large numbers of the homeless."Santa Cruz Reduces Street Crime, but Its Model Is Not Cheap"
article by Scott James in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' September 2, 2010, accessed September 7, 2010

Notes

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External links and further reading

*
The Rabble of Downtown Toronto
' by cartoonist Jason Kieffer, "notable street people in Toronto, himself included". Subcultures