I know you mean well, and having read your other posts your personal connection to the issue brings it closer to home, but before you speak of ignorance make certain you know of whom you speak.
Rather than "empowering" people to remain in a horrible condition by sleeping with them on the streets I've chosen a more effective approach. Homeless people have eaten at my table, slept in my spare bedroom, worn my clothing, been helped to get back on their own two feet by helping them find a job and finally able to get a place of their own, partially furnished by me at my own expense. I consider that kind of "empowerment" more tangeable. And I did it of my own accord without demanding that someone else give me money to pay for it. It was done quietly and privately, without my neighbors even knowing.
Mental illness plays into the picture, but like it or not much of the mental disease on the streets is the result of drug and alchohol abuse. Clean needles and empathy can't cure that. Those who are capable but refuse to change, with or without help, are victims of their own decisions and get no sympathy from me.
Those who are truly incompetent to change due to some mental incapacity are to be pitied and given as much care as they are able to accept, but it is illegal to force them into a mental health care facility. The ACLU and several homless advocacy groups have gone to the courts to fight for their "right" to live on the streets rather than be cared for properly. That makes it diffucult to do much for them...
Now, enough of the soapbox stuff and back to the aquarium...