Do they exist?
Pretty much by definition (1. a migratory worker 2. a vagrant or tramp), no.
A hobo has no permanent home, and therefore little place to collect and maintain a wardrobe. He is not likely to have access to regular medical or dental care, therefore is often not in the best of health. Finally, a hobo often has little or no chance to practice basic hygeine (bathing/showering, professional barbering, even shaving), which is usually a minimal standard for judging someone to be attractive.
The description on this page calls it a “beautiful hobo”, but I think it’s pretty ugly.
Still, I’m sure some attractive hobo bags must exist somewhere.
Wouldn’t the answer depend on who’s deciding who’s attractive?
And this partly on the relative resources available to everybody?
E.g., blues singers in Mississippi before WWII met the aforesaid definitions of homelessness, but had women chasing after them.
But then, most people in that place and time didn’t have much better hygiene or clothing, even if they had a job and a home.
Beauty is in the eyes (and also, in this case, the nose) of the beholder.
The girl in photo number two is/was quite pretty:
http://www.highway99.com/lclarkes/heriones/index.html
What’s going on with the hands of the girl in Photo # 6? :eek: :eek:
Have a look at Alison Murray’s documentary “Train on the Brain”, in which there are several attractive hobos.
Suzie the cheerleading grrrrl hobo is a hottie in a grungy visceral sort of way.
Although not a true hobo, because she only rode the rails for the filming, Alison is an extremely attractive person, even when grimy.
Actually, on the series premier of “Intervention”, they profiled a young guy who had lost everything to his crack addiction and was living on the street.
He was sleeping on the roof of a fancy condo, carefully cleaning up after himself so as to not arouse suspicion of his presence. Every morning, he got up and took a shower int he changeroom for the pool that was alos up there. He then got dressed in a decent pair of Khakis and a nice button down shirt and headed over to a nearby hotel where he would pose as a guest to get the continental breakfast.
You’d never guess by the way he looked that he was homeless. He just looked like an IT guy on his lunchbreak or something. He was clean enough that he wasn’t given a second look in the hotel. I think he was attractive…though my gay friends tell me my “taste” in men is just wrong. 
There’s a homeless I guy I see occasionally near my office. He’s not attractive to me, per se, since that’s not my predisposition, but he’s got a great, full head of gray hair that is always neatly combed and trim, along with a nice full beard. He looks in decent shape and walks with good posture. I’d guess he’s in his early 50s, and for that age is probably in the top 80% of men in looks.
Most likely self inflicted sores, but it could be AIDS. The women in Lincoln Clarke’s Herione series are most likely addicted to herion, crack, and//or speed.
I agree that many of the women Clarke photographed in his “Heroine” series were attractive (in spite of being drug addled and unhealthy) but man, don’t get me started on Clarke as an artist. I could open a pit thread about him. Grrrrrr.
I used to volunteer at a local homeless shelter and there was a young man in his early 30’s who was very handsome schizophrenic who thought he was an incarnation of Christ called “Snowman” He was scruffy and dirty but he had beautiful blue eyes, and nice white teeth. Had his life been different he could’ve been a model. He was probably the only attractive homeless person I ever saw walk through the door of the shelter.
Several of the migratory street people arround London were fairly attractive, but then again they were rairly truley homeless as they usually had a home to go back to when winter came around, they just seemed to like living the hobo boho life by choice.
Hijack - I never really thought of Clarke as an artist myself, more of a fashion photographer who in the case of the Heroines series had a different class of gaunt, unhealthy models. A friend of mine who is a Vancouver photographer worked with him, and told me his reasons for doing the book were due to his own past, and he wanted to show the beauty within the ugliness of DTES (Downtown East Side Vancouver).
Back on topic, I’ve seen in my travels - first hand the people of DTES and many other homeless people, and in my opinion, it takes just a moment to look past the dirt, sores, missing teeth and/or other blemishes and scars and see beauty within, and that I think is what Clarke captured in his Heroines series.