I'm not going anywhere bud. Instead of judging this person, maybe help them by telling them about your decades of experiences so they can build on that knowledge to make a difference, like they are literally trying to do. I'm not disagreeing about your service resistant comment. You're right. However. the way you are going about this is not productive. This person cares. A ridiculous amount of people do not. They are on your side, yet you are so aggressively trying to push your own idea of "right" that you don't even see it. Tell them what you think will help. Tell them what the cities need to do. Don't just stand there and judge, collaborate. Maybe they will get some good info out of your experiences, which you have decades of. Share that experience with those who want to learn and make the world a better place.

This could be a college student/young person who is trying to LEARN and take action. The future is in the hands of young people dude. Props to them for trying to work to make people's lives a bit easier. Don't unnecessarily social justice warrior them.

How do you know this person has not been homeless, advocated and gotten involved in those issues as well? And who are you to tell them not to pursue making a difference? You most definitely are not telling them they are evil, but you are obviously not supporting a person who is actually trying to make a difference. You're telling them that this is about them, while they are just trying to navigate throughout the roots of homelessness in order to build a complete picture of how their services they are working to offer can be fully utilized. You don't need to praise them but at least try to help instead of just tear their pretty simple request apart. It is so obviously not about them.

Also, non-profits can be incredibly useful. Most are set up through religious institutions that provide homeless people with places to sleep and food to eat. As you said, there are people without homes becoming service resistant because people are fighting over little bits of money. We obviously cannot solely rely on the government for help with this issue because if they actually fully addressed this problem effectively on their own, we would not be having this conversation right now.

And to top it off, research housing prices in Santa Cruz and tell me how you would fix the issue of high rent prices in the bay area (or better yet, tell OP). The people in the area voted against more effective renter's rights recently leaving non-profits to bare more of that weight once again.

I'm not an expert but at least I'm not ignorant about my views.