I say, prove it. Frankly, I do not know of anything else that will work. Clearly the President's program will not serve the needs of the homeless, but then maybe it never was meant to serve the needs of the homeless. If there is no solution in the public sector, perhaps there could be one in private charities. Few charities today deliver as much as a dime of material assistance to the poor for each dollar donated to them.
Private charities employ administrators and bureaucrats and social workers and case managers.
But I suppose one day there could be a charity that existed to make direct cash grants to the poor, a charity with virtually no paid staff. I know of one AIDS agency that comes close to this ideal. So my solutions are, I guess, on the one hand impossible and on the other highly unlikely. Against paternalism my point is this. If, for example, you are writing the rules for an emergency shelter and you decide that people should come in to register during the day to receive a bed for the night, will you realize that you are automatically excluding from your shelter everyone who is actively looking for work or otherwise attempting to improve his or her situation by his or her own efforts.