Your response may have some truth to it in terms of aligning belief systems but I don’t think it’s a major factor here in the uphill climb places like Boyle street face to fundraiser for something like this in this climate.
First of all giving is often counter cyclical. When the need is the greatest for things like support for this in poverty is also when people feel less secure to give. With rising interest rates, increased cost of living and a feeling of economic stability people are not inclined to increase their donations, which is what you need to fundraiser for capital - more on that in a bit. Those same economic factors are also a massive reason for why the demand for support for those living below the poverty line is the greatest.
So with the above taken into account I can also tell you that fundraising for poverty support is hard, super, super hard. I know it firsthand from some work I do as a board member. Fundraising is hard in general, but places like the Stollery or the Cancer Society have a leg up. Everyone knows someone, everyone feels the randomness of those illnesses striking, watches the stories and buys the lotto ticket or writes the cheque. They don’t question if the newest gamma knife is the best purchase(just using that as an example) they just give. Poverty is different, depending on your life circumstances you may never ever actually have a relationship with someone who is unhoused, although you almost certainly do with someone who lives in poverty - you just may not know it. Judgement also gets passed by many - they made bad choices, they are welfare bums, would never happen to me, just a druggie, and judgement gets passed in the support needed - just get a job, mandatory addiction treatment, etc. Every dollar is hard fought for.
Now onto fundraising for capital, it is also a tricky dance, regardless of the sector. If you go to an existing donor and say I need money for a new building you need new money from them. If they give you $500 today which funds your operations and say that’s great here’s $300 for your new building and here’s $200 for the rest of what I normally donate you have an immediate problem. So Boyle Street went big game hunting, they looked for deep pockets and big organizations who didn’t normally fund them to kick in. They were super persistent, I know it for a fact and were using some very credible names in the community. They didn’t do a massive community drive for I think the reasons I have stated - they may not have believed they could motivate the community at large and just feared they would steal dollars they need to keep the lights on and pay their staff.
Did they always bank in the $5 million? Maybe so and they have not been perfect here. The Katz group may even have a legal argument here, I don’t really know. I just know it’s a bad situation no matter how we look at this, and a black eye for Katz as the billionaire never comes out of his well, but I suspect it’s not all that helpful for Boyle either.
TLDR - fundraising is hard, even harder for poverty based organizations and it’s a bad situation.