"homelessness became big in January 1981 and disappeared in January 1993"
This was the biggest farce of the 80's.
Just about 1980/81, state mental hospitals were being closed in droves, and their residents being ejected to .... the streets.
The reason? The ACLU and "patients rights" advocates were making headway in state courts to prohibit the involuntary admission of people into hospitals, including those who could not think, care, or decide anything for themselves. Well over 50 percent of "the homeless" were indigent mental patients with nowhere to go.
And it was a leftist, liberal program from start to finish.
Personally, I suspect Karl Rove. Those patients are now at Democratic Underground--supplying us all with laugh after laugh! Thanks, PJ.