The Great Depression struck Sacramento alongside the rest of the United States in 1929, driving approximately 15,000 Sacramentans into unemployment by 1932. The local canning industry was affected first as demand for canned goods dropped drastically, laying off workers; a freeze later destroyed half of the Sacramento area's citrus trees in December 1932. Hoovervilles, or large shantytowns created without official authority by homeless people, began appearing across the city. The city of Sacramento in itself did not have to deal with transient vagrants since that was handled by the county government. However, since both entities relied on charities to supply their relief programs, most of the Sacramento area's government-funded programs were discontinued after local charitable organizations began to collapse. When the relief cash flow was stopped, the county's unemployed united to form an Unemployed Council in attempts to pressure the Sacramentan government to increase relief money. The city and county did not comply sufficiently, and large parties of unemployed stormed the Sacramento welfare offices in early and mid-1933. Many of the unemployed who were involved in such activities were labeled as communist or socialist and jailed on a wide range of charges stemming from the communist scare that had set upon the city.