Our all volunteer organization delivers food to people temporarily or permanently down on their luck. We go out every evening except weekends and holidays. An example of temporary need occurred a few years ago with a nurses' strike at one of the local hospitals. This strike lasted several months, and for some families, the loss of the second income meant that the food budget was stretched to the breaking point. A more hopeless case that we see is the person who retires on a meager income from Social Security.
Time goes on, and their savings melt away, but they are too old and too frail to go back to work.
Yes, there are single mothers who have been abandoned by their husbands. Many of these also have few job skills, and cannot afford day care. Some live in fear of losing their children because they cannot provide for them. There are some people who have little education and no job skills, who have little hope of finding a job they could handle. On the other end of the spectrum are people with good education and high intelligence who have mental conditions which keep them from working with others and make them unemployable.