1980s: Carver writes mainly about people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, and during the 1980s, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States increases. Homelessness becomes a large social problem. It is caused by the lack of affordable housing, higher rates of joblessness, and reductions in public welfare programs that take place during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-89).

Today: Homelessness remains a social problem that successive governments fail to tackle. Housing prices continue to rise, and people working in minimum-wage jobs are increasingly unable to afford them. There are no accurate national figures on the number of homeless people in the United States. However, by way of example, in Los Angeles in 2005, an estimated 85,000 people experience homelessness every day, according to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, Los...