Obviously depending on people to care out of the goodness of their hearts isn't working, if someone really cared about these people they wouldn't be in their situation. You can ask me or anyone else to care, you can even pressure them into appearing to care, but you can't really make them care, so this is a bad way to solve a problem.
If a good system that doesn't depend on emotions, media performances, or pathos can be put into place, it's probably going to be more reliable in the long run, and can mutually benefit both those in bad situations and those who would like to be able to walk in a city without getting asked for money constantly.
Hence it's very valid and good to ask what exactly entails things like "basic expenses" and use hypothetical situations.