About 20% of the medieval population were destitute and homeless

Most paupers fell into one or another of three groups.

The physically handicapped: the mentally retarded, blind and deaf, halt and aged, the deformed, maimed or mutilated, "lepers," epileptics, emotionally disturbed, etc

The socially marginalized: widows and orphans without protection, any criminals who had been "marked," captured soldiers who had been maimed, old women, the "immoral," and others cast out of their own societies.

The economically deprived: those who had been left homeless by the agricultural and commercial revolutions.

The last group was perhaps the largest and grew throughout the later middle ages.

 Improvements in agricultural technology increased both production and productivity. But it created surplus workers.

When the expansion of medieval agriculture reached its limit, there were no new lands for the unemployed to settle, and they became permanently indigent.

At the close of the medieval period, Thomas More (1478-1535), the English humanist, described this situation in the first part of his famous work called Utopia and goes on to describe how a well-ordered society would operate.

Other Causes of homelessness:

rationalization of agriculture through use of wage labor. 

It was much more efficient for the landowners to hire workers when they needed them since they needed to pay them only for the time they worked, and did not have to provide for their workers' old age, illness, or subsistence in times of shortage.

 

Most periods of change -- such as the early Industrial Revolution -- are times of social and economic dislocation when large segments of the population suffer. 

How did medieval Society react to the constant presence of the paupers ?

Tithing and the Franciscan movement

Legal restrictions

Peasants' Revolt of 1381

John Ball's question:

Wham Adam delved and Eve span, where then was the gentleman?

("when Adam was digging and Eve spinning, where was the noble by birth?")

Steven Langland's poem Piers Ploughman.

 

How Was the Problem of the Paupers Finally Solved?

The number of poor and homeless stabilized at about 20% of the population.

Poverty became institutionalized by the early modern period and remained so until the European empires could raise living standards generally by exploiting their colonies.