the.com/steerage

means The cheapest, most cramped class of accommodation on a ship, historically packed into the lower decks near the machinery that steered the vessel.

from From 'steerage' meaning the apparatus or part of a ship used for steering — the aft, lower region near the rudder mechanism. That unglamorous, noisy space below the waterline became where shipping lines herded the lowest-fare passengers, especially the great waves of 19th and early 20th century emigrants crossing the Atlantic. The word never changed; it just picked up the smell of steerage-class life — crowded bunks, thin food, and millions of people betting everything on the far shore.