I"ve heard of employers attempting to give people that are homeless a chance to work. Over, and over, they say that the person that they tried to employ, didn't come to work on time, and otherwise was just a bad worker, making it clear why he, or she, was homeless in the first place.
I guess it can depend on what you consider is help.
Does it mean giving a vagrant some cash, which could be used for anything, and everything, other than food, and other essentials?
Does it mean to give a person some food?
Does it mean to help teach a person some basic buying, and cooking skills, to help the person to stretch his/her dollar further?
How about job skills, job training, and job placement, I"ve heard of church groups helping out former prostitutes with going to college and teaching them new, or expounding on current, expertize.
I moved this to its' own Thread because it is going off into another Topic different from my original Post: Source 8 which was to show how we should know better in treating kindly those that ask us for immediate food / help rather than a holistic long term approach to helping the homeless as you are eluding to.