Someone close to me was in a housing program for homeless youth. They set them up with an apartment in the city, not "low income housing" but just a unit in a random apartment building, one of many around town. Sounds like a great deal. A place to live to get life on track.
Except if you had a job, you had to give half of your income back to the program until your income was above 2x the grant's value per month. (something like $800/mo, not in the bay area)
When you started a job you had to get your management to fill out a form and submit it to the local government.
When you stopped a job you had to get your management to fill out a form and submit it to the local government.
You had to fill out and get your management to sign time sheets showing how much you worked.
You had to save half of your income (and because homeless youth, that usually meant half of a likely barely above minimum wage job) to pay back to the program.
If any paperwork was submitted late you got threatened with getting kicked out of the program.
If you earned too much money you got kicked out of the program.
If your management failed to send in paperwork you got threatened with getting kicked out of the program.
If your case worker who was responsible for submitting your paperwork didn't submit it on time, you got threatened with getting kicked out of the program (this was often the case)
So literally every single month there was a new crisis and the threat of being homeless again. Not an idle threat but an actual "you're going to get kicked out unless..." ... in a program designed to help youth homeless as a result of abuse.
So on top of dealing with whatever severe personal problems, you have to keep down a job that already has a reason to stigmatize you under a program that put you in an apartment which at minimum wage would cost well over 50% of a full time income, but you also have to manage the constant crises of misplaced paperwork and new requirements and poorly understood and explained rules.
It's just a recipe for failure for the most vulnerable people who are the least capable of dealing with uncertainty and stress ... and the very real and constant threat of returning to living on the street, or in a shelter (they're horrible places), going back to the abusive situation you came from, or very likely getting taken advantage of by someone new.
... because a set of well intentioned people with no idea what it is like to be in anything like that situation couldn't come to terms which were simple and straightforward for giving aid to those in need.