Let me throw the story of the former NBA player, Ray WIlliams, into the mix:

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2010/07/02/desperate_times/?page=1

So, we should just say, "Well, in a free society, we will end up with people being forced to live out of their cars.  That is the price of enabling people to pursue their dreams and get rich."?

The guy is now living out of his car, after being a star player in the NBA.

First off, what makes you think anyone is "forced" to live in poverty or that anyone would support a system that "forced" poverty on anyone? How is giving someone welfare and preventing them from gaining the education or experience that will lead them out of poverty not "forcing" poverty on them? How is lowering my standard of living to improve the standard of living of people who refuse to help themselves not "forcing" poverty on me?

By the way your example is an awful one because 5 people could have lived in (relative) luxury for the rest of their lives with 1 year of his salary; and it was his poor decision making that lead him to squander his good fortune and lead to his poverty. This man had opportunities beyond the vast majority of the population to get an excellent education and develop skills and relationships that would provide for him for the rest of his life, and he ends up with nothing because he wasted them.

So, which of the following options do you prefer:

1. People actually do meaningful help to help him out.

2. He stays the way it is, and remains living out of his car the rest of his life.

3. We install life termination booths, and since he screwed up so much, we mercifully kill him, and the rest of the poor, so they don't have to suffer?

The reality is this: People do get breaks and things fail.  They fall between the cracks.  The question is, what of it?  By the way, what bad choices do you know he made?  Can you tell?  Everyone ends up in his situation, because it is entirely his fault?  That is true for EVERYONE?

I guess maybe then my getting a Masters degree in Information Systems was a mistake to.  Well, I guess this video shows why to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V122ICNS8_0

By the way, read this shorthand and say WHERE Ray Williams failed:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/The-sad-tale-of-Ray-Williams-10-year-NBA-vet-no?urn=nba,253262

Can you point to it, or in your universe everyone who fails fails because it is their fault.

We don't have A. B. or C now... so I don't see your point.

We mostly have D.  The government very very inefficiently tries to help him out.

C. by the way is actually more a byproduct of the situation we have now intensifying when lessening. 

A.  Would be best... which is why we should strive for A.

In general people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal are by far the highest donators to charity.

People who love social security and welfare and want more... are less likely to donate money to charity.  It's not hard to figure out why.  When we shift the job to the government... it's a lot easier to ignore the poor and homeless on the streets it's easy to ignore Ray Williams (unless your trying to make a point.)

No changes get made exactly because of the situation we have now.  The situation we have now makes things worse because people stop caring.  There is a lot of great work done by chairty... that works far better then what the government offers. 

Heck, even instead of running itself just bid contracts out for welfare type programs in smaller spread up programs it'd work way more effiecently.

Not only that, he's also forgetting how much the rich spend/consume compared to the "non-rich." 

I am actually a personal witness, in my own life, to how bad things are.  I don't see people doing much here to help.  I actually don't even think people have a clue on how to help.  I have, for example, attempted to be involved with multiple employment seeker groups in area, and find they all tend to die off.  One church I went to for this, cancelled their service, for lack of attendance and then spun it as the economy getting better.  It wasn't getting better.  It was just that they people had no idea on how to help people obtain employment.

Anyhow, what I would say here, as I said before, is you won't get change, unless people start caring NOW.  If they don't, it won't change.  What I also see is government attempting to outsource everything.  This mix of private industry and government spending has shown to be a disaster, with the likes of Blackwater and Halliburton.  Blackwater has been responsible for numerous war crime level attrocities that have happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I find your argument rather close minded and childish because you seem to assume that the only means to help an individual is through the government; and that anyone who rejects the government’s authority or ability to help people obviously doesn’t sympathise or empathise with these individuals. About the only body in the government that has a demonstrated ability to transform individuals to the extent that they can consistently make positive changes in their life is the military; and most of the programs and organizations that set out specifically to help the poor end up worsening their outcomes in the long run.

With that said obviously the only answer to the question is providing meaningful help, but the thing I must point out is that enabling someone to continue the destructive behaviours that are leading to their undesirable outcomes is the opposite of meaningful help. In most cases the most meaningful help an individual can get is to give them a job, help them get meaningful education or training, and to help/encourage them to live within their means; while there are some governments that have shown an ability to provide adequate education, no government has demonstrated an ability to create stable, meaningful and productive work and all governments seem to discourage people from living within their means.

Why on earth do you think that's a bad idea?  What additional restrictions would you place? 

Does Social Security promise huge returns that necessitate unrealistic continuous growth in the payer base vs. the payout clientele the way a Ponzi scheme does? 

I wonder how many people complain because the U.S. government is inefficient. Would the same issues be raised if the people here were from Australia for instance?