In 1933, the average family income was $1,500, down from $2,300 in 1929. Children suffered greatly under such duress. Families lived not only in the shacks of Hoovervilles, but wherever they could find shelter.
In Oakland, California, families lived in a network of unused, above-ground sewer pipes. Many families crammed into one-room ramshackle houses in squalid conditions. Families were abandoned by fathers and mothers. Sometimes children left home.
By 1940, more than 200,000 homeless children wandered the country.
In this photo, a nurse cares for the children of migratory farmworkers in Arvin, California, on Jan. 18, 1937.