Hello. I'd like to rekindle some of your optimism. In a little tiny corner of America, I know of at least one man with a plan to fix this situation.

The plan is relatively simple, start networking. You don't need to make friends per se, but relationships are powerful. Once you have established a relationship with enough people with similar issues to you (think coworkers, family members, people in your neighborhood, etc) start creating co-ops/non-profits. Food/housing are your best bets to get a foothold. As each co-op stabilizes, start on the next. Again, food/housing. Food can be done as a mutual fund and evolves into food drives. Housing starts with "you can crash" and eventually evolves into a non-profit expense-sharing apartment complex with a rent cap.

That last bit might be confusing. A non-profit, expense-sharing apartment complex with a rent cap looks like:

"Your rent is due, this month it cost us $X to keep the lights on, water running, land owned, etcetera. We have Y tenants, which means we need $X/Y from each tenant. Due to the 30% AGI/$1700 (whichever is lower) (according to average rent in America) rent cap, some high earners may be asked to contribute a slightly higher amount than listed above. If this policy applies to you, a second notification will be sent to you."

Eventually, combine them. Why shouldn't your tenants eat for free? You just add "bellies full" to that list up there.

The best part about this plan is that you can give up at literally any point without really fucking with your life too much. The whole plan is basically "make friends and offer to pay their bills until no one needs to pay bills anymore"