Back when I was following my local city subreddit every few months there would be a "I'm about to be homeless what do I do" post. They were provided with all the city and county resources and every single time the OP would try those and get absolutely no help. The system was either full, out of resources, or the OP wasn't poor enough since federal poverty guidelines haven't been updated in forever.

There's virtually no help and what's there is at its breaking point

The problem is often lack of knowledge of these programs

You think homeless people don't know about homeless programs?

Talking to a housing coordinator a few months ago, she said the problem was that there were no beds available and all she could offer was to put people on years-long waitlists.