When homelessness reemerged in American cities during the 1980's at levels not seen since the Great Depression, it initially provoked shock and outrage. Within a few years, however, what had been perceived as a national crisis came to be seen as a nuisance, with early sympathies for the plight of the homeless giving way to compassion fatigue and then condemnation. Debates around the problem of homelessness-often set in terms of sin, sickness, and the failure of the social system-have come to profoundly shape how homeless people survive and make sense of their plights. In Hobos, Hustlers, and Ba