Lets take a personal example: For the last 4 years my brother has worked on reducing recidivism rates in LA's skid row and has created a program which has gotten it to near zero in a small sample sets -- while I work in Silicon Valley trying to make computers reduce unstructured knowledge into products to sell as ads.
Most days I think I'd rather be him, and he rather be me -- but we can't find ways to merge technology and street-problems in a meaningful manner with the restrictions we have in life (his family, my student loans etc).
I say all this to illustrate -- to get to solving problems on the streets, we may need to solve a problem with even getting the right people together. The right people are often working because they need the money and real do-gooders are often trapped in a poverty cycle that ends up draining their contributions to the community.
Essentially good work feels unsustainable to the average educated producer like ourselves -- and we give up. How do you think you can help?