When does charity become enabling?

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I'm not suggesting we should deny aid to those who really need it, but are we doing more harm than good if we collectively always donate to people what they arguably should be doing for themselves?

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While a lot of people bitch and moan about the "free lunch" (no pun intended ) for the poverty stricken, only a small amount of fraud is evident in those programs for schools.

My ex's neighbor was the Director equivalent of the HHS for Houston Independent School District and I asked her the very same question and she said it fraud was negligible at best. I figured it would be a lot more to be honest.

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While a lot of people bitch and moan about the "free lunch" (no pun intended ) for the poverty stricken, only a small amount of fraud is evident in those programs for schools.

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There's little fraud because there's little fraud to be committed. There will be more than a few school districts where every student receives a free lunch regardless of income this year.

To the OP, there is always the potential for enabling with almost every act of charity. And there's unintended consequences. People often perform to the lowest common denominator or they perform down to the expectation of them. Parents who would've provided breakfast for their kids may now send them off to school to get a free breakfast (to stay with the school meal theme) simply because it's there.

Real charity is not for the benefit of the recipient; it's for the benefit of the giver. It goes back to ancient Catholic teachings about receiving grace for good deeds.

Old story about Mother Theresa. She was handing out raw rice in a poor section of India. About 2 pounds per person...bring your own container.
A woman finally got to the front of the line and she held out 2 containers. "Please divide my 2 pounds so that each container has 1 pound. It's for my neighbor who is too ill to make the trip."

Mother Theresa poured one pound into each of the two containers. After the woman walked away Mother Theresa's assistant said "Couldn't you have given her 2 pounds in each container?"

Theresa: "What? And deny her the chance to experience the grace of charity?"

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There's little fraud because there's little fraud to be committed

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While true, wouldn't you agree that fraud is a relative term? In the grand scheme of things, the monetary value is quite low, but it's still fraud at the end of the day.

About fifty years ago. It was called the Great Society.

True charity doesn't just feed a hungry stomach it also helps the person to be able to feed himself.

I think this old phrase explains what charity should be about

"give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish feed him for a life time"

We should teach people who to come out of poverty, giving them the resources they need to survive and raise themselves out of poverty. What many people want to do it just put food in their mouths and not help them come out of poverty. That doesn't nothing to fix the issue.

Another way to describe it is to think of it like a plant.

someone has deep roots as to why they are in poverty. Handouts cut off the flowers and branches of poverty, but true charity uproots what causes them to be poor and allows them to be free and come out of poverty. Many people are chained to the cycle of poverty and our handouts do nothing to break those chains, they just make it easier to live with those chains.