They have regulations to prevent people from abusing the system. The problem is that they make them so complicated that people who are honestly in need but ignorant of the system are unable to navigate their way through while the professional moochers who have made it their business to study the system are able to sail through.
My friend who applied for aid after her husband was disabled has spent a year trying to get some aid. With three kids and her job and trying to care for her husband she doesn't have the time to spend a week doing nothing but going from state office to state office filling out forms and telling her story over and over.
My sister-in-law, however, knows how to work the system to a T. She has not worked in ten years and yet she always has money to spend on... let's just call it recreation.
She can spend a month doing nothing but annoying the state aid people to get a bit more in food stamps or better housing. Why not? She has nothing better to do.
That is the way I see it.
Wish I know how to starve the beat in a really efficient way.
Charities, churches, friends, can take care of the truly needy.