The left poisoned the well with regard to government involvement in charity. Rather than advocating local and limited government assistance to private charities as a means of addressing specific social ills, they used need, real and perceived, as an excuse to expand gun backed authoritarian power. They transferred taxpayer income while creating a permanently dependent class, and feathering their own nests in the process. The predictable result was an increase in the problem. Liberals see themselves as a sort of informal aristocracy of experts.
Conservatives are right to be wary.
Helping others is an act of mercy, performed as a means of achieving godliness. Because of the voluntary nature of the gift, the recipient is, in most cases, inspired to improve his situation and pay back the favor by becoming, to the degree possible, a contributor himself. Government, in this context, acts as a bully pulpit, using moral suasion, jawboning, and assisting in the networking of people and groups. Supreme Court decisions in the 1960's re-enforced this process. Federal cabinet level agencies for housing, human services, health, welfare, and labor expanded in size and legal power.