Yeah, the poor that are able to get to the church and grovel for it. The poor around churches in wealthy neighborhoods do pretty well. The poor around the churches in the neediest neighborhoods, not so well. This is why a centralized distribution system that treats all areas equally are more effective. Don't misunderstand me. The work that the good people in churches do is admirable. They are doing the hard part of Christianity. Caring for the least among us. Too many go to church only for the personal salvation feel good part. It actually becomes a selfish endeavor. If we really want to help the poor we need our government. Attending to the general welfare has always been a function of it. The fraud in the social safety net represents only about 1% of the federal budget. Surely that is not too large a price to pay to act with high ethics. And the entire SSN, outside SS and Medicare/caide, is only 12% of the budget. I don't think many people know this.
There is also fraud when the churches help the poor. I have seen this locally, where folks of obvious means just come for the free stuff.
What? Many churches run community outreach programs that have nothing to do with the poor coming to church to "grovel for it". That's a ridiculous statement. Would you like me to cite specific examples? Do you have statistics or a source on this? Other than anecdotal "from what I've seen" crap. It's selfish to go to church to ask forgiveness of your sins? What? LOL! Hasn't always been a function of the federal government - so don't pretend that is even remotely accurate. Again, it's not the % of the total budget that is relevant, but the fraud that is represented in the portion of the welfare budget. Stop quoting random and irrelevant statistics simply because they drive a flawed narrative. If you are trying to lead us down the path that inefficient spending in the defense budget far outweighs the fraud in welfare, well that would be obvious since defense is many magnitudes greater. But it's apples and oranges.
There is fraud in every aspect of human society. That does not mean we shouldn't spend effort to root it out.