I'm not going to watch that Ben Stein video.  I know what he's going to say, and I have zero respect for him.  He is a Zionist neo-con, and he insults Ron Paul, one of the few if not the only politician left who dares to speak an ounce of truth.

There is too much abuse and corruption embedded in the system for me to agree with you that we should keep funding it.  I'm sorry, that's just how I feel.  I see it day in and day out, it only gets worse with each passing year.  There is very little incentive to get up and go to work in the morning when you are cognizant of the fact that some of your hard-earned money is going to pay for someone's free government cell phone, their heavily-subsidized fancy apartment with washer/dryer, their food stamp bridge card that pays for their food so they can free up all their cash to buy beer and liquor.  I won't have it.  It has gotten to the point where it is just blatantly unfair and beyond redemption. 

It literally has gotten to where it's not too far from someone walking up to me on the street with a pistol and demanding I give them money so they can go buy themselves KFC.

Do you seriously want to argue that current economic conditions are such that EVERYONE wanting work can find it, and it pays sufficiently enough that they can afford to live and not be homeless?  Or do you want to pull a Ben Stein and say that almost everyone on food stamps and welfare are shiftless, lazy, and a bunch of good for nothing bums (in short, if there is any suffering ALL these people deserve it, so getting rid of welfare would get rid of the bad folks, and justice would be served):

And churches do say that, as do any other charitable organization, because they don't see where the slack will be picked up, if they are are the levels of stress they are facing now.  But you need to seriously show someone else who advocates the government should totally stay out, who is in the business, or actually show evidence that it would work out.  Well, maybe work out for you is a bunch of beggars on the street.

If people were not being paid not to work they would (most likely) lower their standards for what work or pay was acceptable and the number of available jobs would increase. Since the output of the economy increased because these individuals were working and producing goods and services, and people would spend their saved tax money in the private economy demanding additional goods and services, it is likely that the job market would improve to the extent that they could at least find a job that paid as well as welfare.

Beyond that, rent control has been demonstrated to reduce the availability of rental properties and rent subsidies have been demonstrated to increase the cost of rent, and if government interference in the housing (and other) markets was eliminated it is likely that you would see greater stratification in the housing market (and other markets) resulting in lower cost of living at the lower end of the spectrum; allowing even low income people to survive.

Essentially, for centuries and throughout most of the world people have been able to survive with an adequate standard of living relative to the country they live in even though they're low income; and only after the government became involved and created an income floor does it become impossible to survive as a low income individual.

Here is an economic reality: If people have only so much to spend, then if you charge above what they make, they can't afford it.  One can argue that rent controls prevents the quality of buildings to improve.  But, if there is a market available, which can be serviced at a certain price, then people will service it.  Other things can impact rental property being available, like limitations on land available, and zoning, which is there to try to manage the environment of a city, keeping elements away from other elements.  Natural limitations can cause it impossible to effectively service.  Same can happen if you have building codes, and landlords can't afford to meet their requirements.  One could possible end up making shelter totally available, if you allow people to occupy parks, but apparently cities don't like that.  Seems people feel there is a need for a minimum standard of health people can live in.  Like, you could have people rent a closet real cheap in NY, that doesn't even provide a bed, or a toilet.  

Here is a different situation which will clearly make my point ...

If you eliminated telephone carrier subsidies do you think Apple would continue to focus on producing an $800 phone, or do you think they would primarily focus on making a $200 to $300 phone? With the iPod touch being very similar to an iPhone and selling at a massive mark-up at $300 do you think that people would have substantially worse phones due to the lack of subsidies?

In the absence of rent control, real estate investors would build rental properties to meet the demands of the middle and high end markets resulting in a lot of bigger and nicer units being built in a city; and the previous middle and high end apartment buildings would be able to rent for less money resulting in more affordable units. Over time, the average quality of housing unit for everyone (including the poor) would become better.

In the absence of subsidies at the low end of the market, people who rent to low income individuals would have to price their units according to market conditions and the net result is rental prices would fall to levels that low income people could pay.

When it comes to food, if the government wasn't paying for food to be converted into fuel or paying farmers not to grow crops on their land it is likely that the supply of food would increase and the price of food would fall.

And what then happens, is EVERYONE thinks they are going to get a piece of that upper end pie, so they build to it, and don't build to the lower end.  You end up with a glut of property people can't afford, and can't afford to maintain.  Without the subsidies  to assist the poor to get housing, they go without.  The property will also often be torn down and replaced with other property.  The housing doesn't magically relocate, and where the heck is the new rental property going to go up in the likes of NYC?  

You can argue that the situation with American home value spiking was due to cheap mortgages being available and financing for more house that would be reasonable.  People see it as an investment opportunity, assuming prices go up.  Same happened with college education and also health care.  The incentives to move up the upper end is out there, so everyone does it.  No one looks downward.  And that is a problem, and why you can't just say that if you remove rent control BAMMO, no more homeless problem.

If people were not being paid not to work they would (most likely) lower their standards for what work or pay was acceptable and the number of available jobs would increase. Since the output of the economy increased because these individuals were working and producing goods and services, and people would spend their saved tax money in the private economy demanding additional goods and services, it is likely that the job market would improve to the extent that they could at least find a job that paid as well as welfare.

Beyond that, rent control has been demonstrated to reduce the availability of rental properties and rent subsidies have been demonstrated to increase the cost of rent, and if government interference in the housing (and other) markets was eliminated it is likely that you would see greater stratification in the housing market (and other markets) resulting in lower cost of living at the lower end of the spectrum; allowing even low income people to survive.

Essentially, for centuries and throughout most of the world people have been able to survive with an adequate standard of living relative to the country they live in even though they're low income; and only after the government became involved and created an income floor does it become impossible to survive as a low income individual.

You're going to have to put very heavy qualifiers around the word "survive" or retract that statement.

In what way?

If we narrow down all of human history to the past few hundred years and focus on countries with democratic free market capitalism, how many people died at an unusually young age (relative to their country at that point in time) because they were poor?

In this time frame the chance of starving to death was several orders of magnitude greater due to government involvement (Ukrain, China, North Korea) than due to lack of government involvement.