The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Indigence \In"di*gence\, n. [L. indigentia: cf. F. indigence.
   See Indigent.]
   The condition of being indigent; lack of estate, or means of
   comfortable subsistence; penury; poverty; as, helpless
   indigence. --Cowper.

   Syn: Poverty; penury; destitution; want; need; privation;
        lack. See Poverty.
        [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

indigence
    n 1: a state of extreme poverty or destitution; "their indigence
         appalled him"; "a general state of need exists among the
         homeless" [syn: indigence, need, penury, pauperism,
         pauperization]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

26 Moby Thesaurus words for "indigence":
   bare cupboard, bare subsistence, beggarliness, beggary,
   deprivation, destitution, empty purse, grinding poverty, gripe,
   hand-to-mouth existence, homelessness, impecuniousness,
   impoverishment, lack, mendicancy, moneylessness, necessitousness,
   necessity, need, neediness, pauperism, pauperization, penury,
   pinch, privation, want