Poverty in Great Depression. Family and their five children on the road during the Great Depression. They are walking from Idabel to Krebs, in Oklahoma, USA. The father lost his farm in 1936 after falling sick. He was refused county relief due to residency rules. Around 500,000 Americans were made homeless by the economic and ecological effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. This was a series of droughts and dust storms that forced agricultural families to migrate in search of jobs and food. Photographed in June 1938 by US photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) who produced iconic images of the Great Depression.