end up in the poorhouse

Joe begins to spend money and she tells him he'll end up in the poorhouse.

Else we'd end up in the poorhouse."

My dad thought I'd end up in the poorhouse or in doughnut shops with a bag full of reviews."

Charlie Chaplin's most famous character, the Little Tramp, had its roots in his upbringing, as a middle-class boy who, due to his mother's mental illness and his father's alcoholism, ended up in the poorhouse and then an orphanage.

Even though such laws made life harder for creditors (who now had the burden of ensuring that any prospective debtor had not been judicially declared a spendthrift), they were thought to be justified by the public policy of keeping a spendthrift's family from ending up in the poorhouse or on welfare.