flophouses
Seedy transient hotels
Flophouses are cheap lodging houses offering minimal accommodations—typically just a bed in a shared room—for transients, vagrants, and the down-on-their-luck.
The term evokes Skid Row districts and Depression-era poverty: He spent his last dollar on a flophouse bed.
The singular flophouse remains more common.
Impoverished urban district
- destituteUtterly without means
- homelessWithout a dwelling
- down-and-outLacking all resources
- indigentExtremely poor, lacking necessities
vagrants · drifters · unemployed · broke · desperate · impoverished · marginal · subsistence
Premium, exceptionally soft cut
- slumsImpoverished, crowded districts
- inner-cityCentral part of metropolis
- rundownQuick overview of facts
- dilapidatedRuined through neglect
seedy · neighborhood · downtown · district · condemned · neglected · blighted · decrepit
Temporary occupants or travelers
- dormitoryStudent living building
- bunksNarrow built-in beds
- cotsSmall portable beds
- roomsEnclosed interior spaces
boarders · nightly · cheap · rent · accommodations · beds · cubicles · partitions
Itinerant without fixed address
- railyardTrain staging facility
- migrantOne who relocates
- ProhibitionConstitutional alcohol ban era
- 1930sFourth decade, twentieth century
breadlines · itinerant · tramping · missions · charity · workhouses · relief · shantytown
skid row
Impoverished urban district
- destituteUtterly without means
- homelessWithout a dwelling
- down-and-outLacking all resources
indigent · vagrants · drifters · unemployed · broke · desperate · impoverished · marginal · subsistence · welfare
tenderloin
Premium, exceptionally soft cut
- slumsImpoverished, crowded districts
- inner-cityCentral part of metropolis
- rundownQuick overview of facts
dilapidated · seedy · neighborhood · downtown · district · condemned · neglected · blighted · decrepit · squalid
transients
Temporary occupants or travelers
rooms · boarders · nightly · cheap · rent · accommodations · beds · cubicles · partitions · weekly
hobo
Itinerant without fixed address
- railyardTrain staging facility
- migrantOne who relocates
- ProhibitionConstitutional alcohol ban era
1930s · breadlines · itinerant · tramping · missions · charity · workhouses · relief · shantytown · vagabond
- homelessnesshomeless, homeless shelters, unhoused, homeless veterans, houseless
- hellholeshellhole, dungeons, dungeon, dump, dumps
- povertypoverty line, poor, poverty rate, impoverished, generational poverty
- outcastsoutcast, pariah, pariahs, outcasts, outlaws
- rough neighborhoodsslums, ghettos, ghetto, inner city, projects
flophousesluxury hotels
Premium overnight accommodations
grand hotels · palaces · resorts · boutique hotels · penthouse suites