ABSTRACT
The industrialization and urbanization of the nineteenth century created additional groups of transient and seasonal workers who, like the permanent core of wanderers, needed food and shelter when they had no jobs. The Mission chosen for study was located in downtown Syracuse, and it performed several functions besides providing shelter to about 100 migrant or homeless men each night. Clients walked into the shelter from the street and signed a register at the front desk, giving their names, birth dates, birthplaces, Social Security numbers, and the names and addresses of next of kin. The Mission staff was particularly conscious of this downwardly mobile group, both the Director and the shop foreman describing such cases. The Mission shelter had cut itself off from the rest of the agency world because its staff believed that its core religious service with the addition of special medical services was all that was needed to save the whole man.
