"If she never had a car, then I have no sympathy."
I would assume some of these folks are just lazy, but others who lived in the city never needed a car. They rode buses and streetcars and had stores close to their homes. My late grandmother lived in a very modest house off Carrollton in N.O. and never even learned to drive. She walked two blocks to the streetcar or the bus most of the time, and she also had family that helped her out, including a sister next door.
Had she been alive and moved to the same place these folks are (in her case that wouldn't have happened because she had 10 children, 8 still alive), she would have been just as lost as they are now. And my grandmother was NOT a helpless person.
Does the government or taxpayer owe these people a Christmas? Of course not.
Yes, that's a good point. I would assume that your Grandmother and her children were of a different mindset and wouldn't have looked to the taxpayers to help them out. It's a different world today.