My hunch is that taxes are the most efficient 'charity', even with the bloat, and everyone's too busy sniffing farts in their corner to see it.
Society is about the compromise. However that compromise makes nobody happy.
Jeez the pedantry around here.
Let me spell it out: Upper class people don't have to work to maintain their existing lifestyle. Steve Jobs could have continued wearing black turtlenecks and paying fines for parking his Mercedes in handicapped spots for the rest of his life, without doing a lick of work. That he didn't is a credit to his work ethic and passion for the work.
I wouldn't want to live like that and I wouldn't wish it on even the most undeserable (life without parole prisoneers). you could do it. Some do it for a month or two in college as they see the world - but they go back to a more normal life and just fondly tell stories.
One can of beans is ~400kcal and costs ~$1.30+tax in my closest QFC, so you need around $4 per day just for beans (3 cans). 5lb bag of rice (50 servings, 160kcal per serving) is $5.50, & you need 5 servings per day to reach 2000kcal, so +55¢. That's $135/mo just for rice and beans, and I have not checked if that satisfies daily protein intake needs.
Where will you set up your tent without getting arrested? Needs to be walkable from a Goodwill, otherwise you need transport once a year. How are you cooking the rice? Where are you getting the potable water from?
Decent sleeping bag is another $100.
Even your unserious response is underestimating the amount of money required.
Sorry, but with such an outrageously low estimate (US poverty line is $15k a year), you have to put in a bit more effort and show some receipts.
Generally speaking, the sad truth of a complex economy is that coordination is hard, and there's usually a short-term privatized gain to be had by someone willing to poison the future and the commons. No amount of benefit to humanity overall or even the specific society such a person lives in will convince a person who simply doesn't care about anyone else. Fortunately for humanity, a very small minority of people actually operate like that. Unfortunately for humanity, some of them have managed to accumulate a lot of power