We could go back to the Bible to see how the ancient Israelites took care of their own. Most of America has been swept up in the big government/Roosevelt view of what helping thy neighbor means. We have all been hypnotized by the socialist/big government way of looking at life, American culture and community has been weakened.
I have my strong disagreements with the Mormons, but this is one thing that they have done right, and continue to do in spite of the nearly monolithic government welfare industry. FDR’s New Deal, and its continuation, has just about killed off private charity in this country. Before the New Deal, and the Depression which it prolonged, there were local charitable organizations that were privately and voluntarily funded and operated. The government had pushed them aside. Even the black neighborhoods had “mutual assistance societies” that were getting the job done, until the liberals in the name of “helping” them destroyed neighborhoods and families and herded them into Soviet style apartment projects. Even some of my liberal friends have been waking up to this, seeing the government welfare bureaucrat as only interested in keeping more people dependant on the dole in order to justify their jobs rather than really helping people, and thus seeing more merit with the private, local, and voluntary model.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." - G.K. Chesterton