Description of a Tramp Essay

A tramp, also known as a hobo, is the term used to describe a person, who lives a vagrant lifestyle and who usually itinerant and redundant. Many tramps travel from place to place, also looking for some form of shelter or a short-term job to earn money to survive, on the other hand some other tramps depend on begging for money to survive, some even resort to scavenging. Many tramps have traveled to seek work or to find more pleasant and welcoming communities where they might obtain assistance from charitable organizations, churches, or individuals. Tramps became very high-profile throughout the Great Depression, when many people were forced into transient lifestyles by the disturbed American economy. The image of a tramp is usually recognized as dirty, dishevelled and disgusting. Tramps are generally seen residing on streets; on top of that they can be seen drunk, asleep and oblivious to their surroundings. A tramp lives on very few clothes and hardly any money (sometimes even none at all). Many are very unclean; they do not shave, shower or have any change of clothes as they can not afford any of these resources. In addition to that, they become even more dirty as they resort to sleeping on the streets as they do not have any other shelter, the dirt on the streets does not help their hygiene or health. Also it adds to their extremely unpleasant smell, as most live outside everyday in the busy, polluted cities, this also impacts their hygiene and most importantly health. As they have no change of clothes, the different seasons in the year can be very hard for them, as in the summer, when it is incredibly hot they suffer also in the deep winter, which again disturbs their health. Many people become tramps and homeless for various number of reasons, the most common include becoming addicted to drugs, therefore loosing money, job, friends and family and being left alone with nothing, this is also a similar case with alcohol and gambling. On some occasions it is not necessarily that persons fault, it could be that the persons family have been homeless before, or because someone else has cheated the person causing them to lose everything and ending up on the streets or they have been made redundant by the government. It could also be they are uneducated as they did not have the opportunity to go to school. It could be economic circumstances, mental illness and many other factors that they have ended up in such a bad state. To survive, tramps usually resort to begging in the streets or in busy areas such as shopping centres. Some also work hard to try and find temporary jobs, usually jobs that come with shelter. Many tramps also seek charitable organization which help homeless people and provide food and comfort. Others even scavenge for food and clothes in dumps and bins, most only do this if they are exceedingly desperate. However, when tramps beg on the streets many people do not really wish to donate money or food to the tramps as their unpleasant appearance prevents them, also they believe the tramps will misuse the money on alcohol and drugs as opposed to spending it on material they need.