History Main / CrazyHomelessPeople

** The CrazyCatLady. Subverted in that she does have a house and when Marge mentions she gave her money, the Cat lady pulls out a bundle of cash and asks how much she owed her again. she is just really crazy.

--->'''Wiggum:''' Whoa, slow down sir, slow down ... who's stealing your thought?

* Hilariously parodied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. At first, the sudden influx of homeless into the town is treated as a ZombieApocalypse, though they moan for "change" rather than brains. Randy Marsh even kills one of his friends when it's revealed he lost his home, and [[ZombieInfectee is slowly turning into one of them]]. Later in the episode, the boys go to a town that destroyed itself over the situation. You see, eventually some of them (somehow) amassed enough change to buy houses. The citizens of the town were freaked [[InsaneTrollLogic ("The person living right next door to you could be homeless and you wouldn't even know it!")]] and treating the homeless as something other than human, purged their town to devastation.

* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', an old friend of Earl's is on The List. Back in the day, Earl and Randy got kicked out of the house by their father (again), and a CloudCuckoolander named Raynard took them in to his home. Sometime later, the tables were turned; Raynard got evicted from his apartment and attempted to turn to Earl for help, but Earl turned him away due to being married to a moody, pregnant Joy. Raynard took shelter in a Bookmobile they had abandoned earlier (they had pretended it was a tour bus and they were rockstars to get girls to sleep with them), and ate some hallucinogenic berries (and the books). He spouted nonsense (having forgotten what it was like to interact with people), and sincerely thought he was married to a woman named Irene (who turned out to be [[BestialityIsDepraved a raccoon]]). Earl helps him detox from the berries, and attempts to help him reintegrate into normal (well, normal for ''Camden'', anyway) human society, but that doesn't work out. Earl realizes that Raynard was ''much'' happier living in the woods, and sets him up with proper camping supplies.

* ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'': In a convoluted series of events that could've driven him crazy if he weren't already, a homeless man called "the tramp" is mistaken for Merlin, mooches off of a baffled coven of pseudo-scientific fascist devil-worshippers, then the ''real'' Merlin shows up and casts a mind-control spell on the tramp, finally forcing him to ''impersonate'' Merlin as part of the real Merlin's plans to destroy the fascists. For his part, the tramp himself was unaware of all of this, and just wanted to eat and drink as much as possible. It's difficult to say whether C.S. Lewis wanted this PlayedForLaughs, PlayedForDrama, or both.

* Spamton G. Spamton from ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' was the [[HonestJohnsDealership number-one rated salesman]] back in the day [[spoiler: with the help of a [[DealWithTheDevil mysterious voice]] on the telephone.]] But after trying to "[[LonelyAtTheTop see too far]]" for his own good, [[RichesToRags everything crashed and burned around him]]. By the time the player first meets him, he's been reduced to living inside a dumpster, still [[TalkativeLoon babbling about the glory days]] and trying to strike deals even as he tries to [[YourSoulIsMine take Kris's soul]] for himself. [[spoiler: And as the BonusBoss of Chapter 2, he manages to become ''[[AxCrazy even less lucid]]''.]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Spawn}}'' animated show features the eponymous hero often conversing with, protecting, and living with the homeless. The portrayal of them varied. Often they were alcoholics and drug addicts, or at least mentally unhinged, but good people. The irony being that the homeless were often more morally grounded than the show's other characters who lived in relative wealth.

* The ''Spawn'' animated show features the eponymous hero often conversing with, protecting, and living with the homeless. The portrayal of them varied. Often they were alcoholics and drug addicts, or at least mentally unhinged, but good people. The irony being that the homeless were often more morally grounded than the show's other characters who lived in relative wealth.

* Spamton G. Spamton from ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' was the [[HonestJohnsDealership number-one rated salesman]] back in the day... or at least he ''was'', before falling on hard times. By the time the player first meets him, he's been reduced to living inside a dumpster, still [[TalkativeLoon babbling about the glory days]] and trying to strike deals even as he tries to [[YourSoulIsMine take Kris's soul]] for himself. [[spoiler: As the BonusBoss of Chapter 2, he becomes ''[[AxCrazy even less lucid]]''.]]

* Hasegawa Taizou A.K.A. Madao (which stands for "totally useless middle-aged man" in Japanese) from ''Manga/{{Gintama}}'' is a subversion of this, being a lot more sympathetic then your average hobo. While almost everyone treats him like dirt, the only thing he's really inept at is finding and keeping a job and has actually forgone jobs for the sake of doing what's right.

* ''Manga/ArakawaUnderTheBridge'' is about the wacky shenanigans of community of homeless people ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin under a bridge in Arakawa]]) who are all... [[CloudCuckooLander unique, in their own ways]].

* Creator/GarthEnnis' ''ComicBook/{{Punisher}}'' had quite a few. One storyline revolved around a homeless guy who lived in the New York sewers and [[spoiler: had people abducted, killed and kept in a huge pile under which he lay in order to remind him of his obese mother]]. Another story began with a splash page of a homeless guy on the street, being ignored, screaming, "I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!!"

* Strongly subverted when Gin, Hana and Miyuki, the central three characters in ''Anime/TokyoGodfathers'', show us a side of Tokyo rarely seen in anime.

* ''Film/MouthToMouth'': Averted. Most of the characters are homeless and apparently sane, if quite influencable. Also, even though Mad Axe appears to play this trope straight, it's later subverted when he reveals it's all just a masquerade with the following quote:

* In ''Film/{{Monsters|2010}}'', the only person left [[spoiler:in the Texas Evacuated Zone]] is a mentally-ill bag lady who apparently didn't evacuate with the sane folks.

* The mysterious wise woman of the streets from ''Literature/TheDaysGoSoSlow'' by Nicasio Latasa who becomes an EccentricMentor for the protagonist Curren and helps him change his life. She is also a seer with precognitive powers, and it is mentioned that in spite of being extremely unkempt, she retained traces of beauty.

* In the ''Literature/CircleOfMagic'' books - specifically, their sequels - Daja meets with a homeless man who seems crazy, but is surprisingly helpful. He returns in ''The Will of The Empress'' and catches Tris' eye. Together Tris and Briar conclude that [[spoiler: he actually has the phenomenally rare ability to see and hear on the wind, which, combined with his attempts to repress it, and all the horrible treatments administered to try and make him stop it, and the constant treatment as if he ''is'' insane, have driven him half-mad already.]] They help him and it's suggested at the end that he's going to be able to function (relatively) normally in society from now on.

* While trying to get back home, Bella from ''Literature/ADogsWayHome'' is caught by a homeless man named Axel. He's a mentally ill and heroin addicted veteran that refuses to stay at a homeless shelter because he thinks people are tracking him. Bella refuses to leave Axel because she feel he needs her. She stays with him until [[spoiler:he dies of an overdose]].

* ''Series/{{Raines}}'' did an episode that actually deconstructed this particular variation of the trope, where the deceased of the case Raines has taken on is a murdered homeless woman, who turns out to have had her identity stolen, among other tragic circumstances. When he talks to his therapist about the case, she notes after noticing his discomfort with the case that many times people aren't "comfortable" thinking of homeless people as real people who are worthy of normal respect and kindness, because they would rather think of themselves as naturally superior than admit that they too might possibly end up in similar dire straits. The show managed to do it without seeming too much like a Very Special Episode... and in that the show still got canned anyway.

* The ''Series/LawAndOrder'' episode "Darwinian" has a take on the "human trash" concept. A homeless man is on trial for murdering another homeless man over an ''orange''. The defense lawyer argues that his desperate situation caused him to kill just to survive (hence the title), which should excuse him of his crime. [=McCoy=]'s counter-argument: saying that homeless people should not be judged by the same standards as the rest of us is saying they are less than human. And in this particular case, letting the murderer go free would further suggest the life of the homeless victim was worth less than that of someone more fortunate! (He wins.)

* ''Series/ICarly'' makes a few references to these early in the shows run. One example being Sam needing to bring a baseball bat to a corner shop because of a crazy hobo living in the alley next to it.
* In an episode of ''Series/CopRock'', a homeless encampment was being cleared out. So, what does the homeless people do? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SJqRbNpJsk They broke out in a song and dance number.]]
* ''Series/TheWestWing'' had an episode dedicated to Toby arranging a military funeral for a homeless Korea veteran who happened to buy a coat which he donated to Goodwill, and then die in it on Christmas Eve. His brother fits the "crazy" trope nicely.

* In the ''Series/{{Bones}}'' episode "The Woman In The Tunnel," one of the guest characters is not only homeless, but also a ShellShockedVeteran. He is discovered in a tunnel hundreds of feet underneath the city near the body of the episode's victim, and when taken in for questioning, is very twitchy and uncommunicative. When they have him take them underground, however, he mellows out greatly. [[spoiler: He is homeless as a choice, taking care of the other homeless people [[TheAtoner as atonement]] for [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone accidentally killing a pregnant woman and her child]] on the battlefield.]]

* "Kill Moves" from ''Series/EverybodyHatesChris'', seems to be a classical example of this (plus he knows martial-arts!), until we find out that [[spoiler:he's actually from a rich family, with a high level of inteligence, used to work in a number of qualified jobs until the economy changed, then he saw a vision of [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Gazoo]] telling him to follow his true calling and become a homeless person.]]

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' had the 29th century captain Braxton degenerate into this after getting stranded in the 20th century.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Eagleheart}}'' featured crazy homeless people whom the government wanted to kidnap and experiment on, so that their dreams could be used for fuel, or something. Subverted in that the hobos really were from another planet and the whole thing was just a ride at an amusement park in the vein of Universal Studios' "E.T. Adventure".

* ''Series/EerieIndiana'': In "No Brain, No Pain", the crazy homeless man Chappie is rumored to an axe murderer called the Mad Whacker or Eerie's last living liberal. Marshall and Simon discover that he is in fact Charles Furnell, the smartest man on Earth. He invented the Brainalyzer in 1978 so that the knowledge and intelligence of brilliant people could be preserved for future generations. However, his wife Eunice Danforth stole it in order to fix the 1980 presidential election. To ensure that this could never happen again, Charles destroyed the Brainalyzer, scrambled his brainwaves and transferred his mind onto an 8-track tape of the Knack song "My Sharona". Even in his brain scrambled state, however, he retained enough knowledge to build another Brainalyzer.
* Rickety Cricket of ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' doesn’t start out as one, but after his SanitySlippage he becomes an unhinged, animalistic, drug-addict who talks at length about [[BestialityIsDepraved being raped by and raping feral dogs]] and gleefully assists the Gang in their [[ZanyScheme Zany Schemes]] in exchange for booze and drugs.
* On ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', an old friend of Earl's is on The List. Back in the day, Earl and Randy got kicked out of the house by their father (again), and a CloudCuckoolander named Raynard took them in to his home. Some time later, the tables were turned; Raynard got evicted from his apartment, and attempted to turn to Earl for help, but Earl turned him away due to being married to a moody, pregnant Joy. Raynard took shelter in a Bookmobile they had abandoned earlier (they had pretended it was a tourbus and they were rockstars to get girls to sleep with them), and ate some hallucinogenic berries (and the books). He spouted nonsense (having forgotten what it was like to interact with people), and sincerely thought he was married to a woman named Irene (who turned out to be [[BestialityIsDepraved a raccoon]]). Earl helps him detox from the berries, and attempts to help him reintegrate into normal (well, normal for ''Camden'', anyway) human society, but that doesn't work out. Earl realizes that Raynard was ''much'' happier living in the woods, and sets him up with proper camping supplies.

* The Beggar Woman in ''Theatre/SweeneyTodd'' can go from a kindly old woman to bawdy prostitute in two seconds flat. She carries around a rag doll and sings nursery rhymes to it and essentially stalks and sexually harasses Anthony. Justified, [[spoiler: as she went insane after attempting suicide with arsenic following her rape and her husband's deportation]]

* The very first enemies that Johnny fights in ''VideoGame/ShadowHeartsFromTheNewWorld'' are the belligerent bums inhabitating the abandoned Erick Theatre.

* The [[UnexplainedRecovery formerly]] late [[BackAlleyDoctor Doctor Hobo]] in ''Webcomic/VGCats''. His speech was an endless stream of word salad, and his behavior ranged from "erratic" to "incomprehensible". He refers to a dead rodent as his cell phone, and seems to have convinced himself that he was a doctor.

* ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'' has [[http://eheroes.smackjeeves.com/comics/2113033/yeah-what-she-said/ Scary Mary.]] She is definitely crazy, but has lately shown signs of being on to something.

* Michael Swaim of Agents of Cracked has not one, but two homeless wives.(One for the house, one for his car, you see) Both of them are appropriately nutty.

* Assuming that ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' 's crazy old Royal Tart-Toter is a homeless drifter who spends his days wandering around and hurting himself, he definitely qualifies as this trope. Averted in a later episode, where he's seen living in a mental hospital, and is doing a bit better.

* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', we have Old Man [=McGucket=], a MadScientist who lives in a garbage dump and who even introduces himself as the "local kook" in one episode. His introduction in the episode "The Legend of the Gobblewonker" [[EstablishingCharacterMoment says it all]]. Plot relevant explanation is eventually given for both his madness and homelessness; [[spoiler:he fried his brain with an experimental LaserGuidedAmnesia device trying to forget various things he'd seen and done, most notably scientific experiments he had been involved in which nearly ended the world and caused him to be briefly sucked into the [[EldritchLocation Nightmare]] [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow Realm]], and also including everything from car accidents to demons. The more things he forgot, the less stable and functional he became until his downward spiral caused him to lose everything and live in the dump with no memory of his life before before he became the local kook.]] He eventually gets somewhat better [[spoiler:after regaining his memories]], and gets a new home in the finale.

** "The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot" has a crazy old man standing in a fast food restaurant, arguing [[OverlyLongGag for a inordinately long time]] with the ApatheticClerk behind the counter that they forgot his coleslaw, [[UnsatisfiableCustomer when he's holding it in his hand]].

* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' loves this trope. In one episode, they have their own airline, complete with inflight movie performed by "Crazy John" ("You ain't got no legs, Lt. Dan!"). In another, a man navigates his daily life as if it were ''VideoGame/DragonsLair'' complete with dodging a homeless man spouting lines like "Hey, boogie boogie, my brain is an antelope! Have some mustard cause it's Easter in your face!" Yet another episode involved a number of insane homeless people wearing Clark Kent's discarded suits from when he changed into Franchise/{{Superman}}, and Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson and Franchise/{{Batman}} at first think it's really Clark.

** The CrazyCatLady. Subverted in that she does have a house and when Marge mentions she gave her money the Cat lady pulls out a bundle of cash and asks how much she owed her again. she is just really crazy.

* Hilariously parodied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''. At first, the sudden influx of homeless into the town is treated as a ZombieApocalypse, though they moan for "change" rather than brains. Randy Marsh even kills one of his friends when it's revealed he lost his home, and [[ZombieInfectee is slowly turning into one of them]]. Later in the episode the boys go to a town that destroyed itself over the situation. You see, eventually some of them (somehow) amassed enough change to buy houses. The citizens of the town were freaked [[InsaneTrollLogic ("The person living right next door to you could be homeless and you wouldn't even know it!")]] and treating the homeless as something other than human, purged their town to devastation.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'''s [[CloudCuckoolander Soldier]] has taken a turn for the crazy and hobo-esque as of the Pyromania update. The item set from that update casts him as a questionably paranoid ConspiracyTheorist living off expired soup and killing people with weapons made of junk metal after [[ItMakesSenseInContext being kicked out of the apartment he shared with a wizard]]. He's already had situations in the past where he doesn't have the luxury of eating, so this trope is a pathetically hilarious continuation of his circumstances and his extant lack of grip on reality.

** Chief Wiggum takes his son Ralph with him to "talk sense into the raving lunatics".

* In an episode of ''Series/CopRock'', a homeless encampment was being cleared out. So, what does the homeless people do? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv9MKVVMn6s They broke out in a song and dance number.]]

The trope is a partial TruthInTelevision as the mentally ill are disproportionally represented in the homeless population. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that 20-25% of the homeless population in the USA have "serious mental illnesses". The symptoms of many mental illnesses and addictions can make holding down a job difficult (and the stigma of a former brush with mental illness makes many employers wary of hiring them), and the loss of income may eventually lead to homelessness. The problem is compounded by the Patients' Rights Movement, which makes forcing someone into treatment more difficult than it used to be, and America (and the rest of the world) instituting the policy of ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalisation deinstitutionalization]]'' with regards to the mentally ill during the 1960s and 1970s. The idea was that with the invention of many psychotropic drugs (Thorazine for schizophrenia, Prozac for depression, Valium for anxiety, Lithium for bipolar disorder, etc), instead of locking up the mentally ill in mental hospitals (possibly for years or the rest of their lives), they would be given medication and sent home, and the money saved would be instead reinvested into community housing and social support programs to help these patients reintegrate into the community.

* The killer in the slasher film ''Open House'' turns out to be a crazed vagrant who is killing realtors because he blames them for his homelessness.

-->-- ''Boys of Bedlam'', '''Music/SteeleyeSpan'''

* The Laughing Man from ''Literature/WhenYouReachMe'', though how much is an act and how much is real is in question. This makes a nice ShoutOut to ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'', where Mrs. Whatsit is described as looking, in day-to-day life, like a homeless tramp as ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'' is ib-universe Miranda's favorite book.

->''"Buggrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!"''
-->-- '''Foul Ole Ron''', ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''

* One CreepyPasta has the narrator be not-so-nice to the local babbling hobo. That night, he has a nightmare (implied to be supernaturally imposed upon him somehow) of the night the homeless guy lost his mind: [[ForcedToWatch Witnessing his family being horribly killed in a car accident after their vehicle was hit by a drunk driver]], leaving him unable to utter anything but insane gibberish.

* One CreepyPasta has the narrator be not-so-nice to the local babbling hobo. That night, he has a nightmare (implied to be supernaturally imposed upon him somehow) of the night the homeless guy lost his mind: SurvivorsGuilt because of his family being killed by a drunk driver, leaving him unable to say anything but insane gibberish.