How do you help said ppl without knowing where they are, how many of them there are, and who is eligible (now and in the future) without long term catorgorization?
If you want to know where poverty is found in the US you can just ask the IRS. Effectively every adult is reporting their income and major property every year. Additionally, you could easily look at services for the marginal. How many empty beds are in the this particular homeless shelter, how many people in the area applied for food stamps, etc.
It really doesn’t matter that much. All you have to do is read a single bill that gets passed in Washington and it becomes clear that need of a population has no relationship with funding for that population.