From a few words which reached my ear, I found there was some tale of domestic calamity in the case, and that some unfortunate family had been rendered Houseless by the storm.
"Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists"
Washington Irving
I had a memorandum from Mr. Kennedy to call at the other, to thank the owner for lending him a horse; and there I first entered again under a roof, and a most agreeable cover it did seem to me after living nearly a year under canvass, in Houseless wilds.
"Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia In Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848) by Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell Kt. D.C.L. (1792-1855) Surveyor-General of New South Wales"
Thomas Mitchell
His first care was to cut off all communication between the burning part of the city and that which remained entire; for to extinguish the conflagration was beyond his power, or the means of man to accomplish; his next was to despatch messengers into all the surrounding districts, to collect provisions for the Houseless inhabitants; and his third was to send round to all the parochial clergy and heads of yet existing convents, to urge them to impress on their congregations and inferiors, as a duty both grateful to Heaven, and called for by man, to bury the dead without delay.
"The Prime Minister"
W.H.G. Kingston