Jill:
One of the things that I learned from my engineering career is this saying:
How do you eat an Elephant?
One spoonful at a time!
In keeping with that sentiment, I would suggest that a search begin with a few metropolitan areas. That should make the starting point much more manageable.
Here in California I believe that there are some services to help people find housing, at least on a temporary basis. However, probably more people are needed that understand that these programs exist, how to connect people with than and how to navigate the maze of requirements.
