I disagree it is the governments job to give people a place to live. From the sounds of it, Hong Kong already does a lot of this. At some point, people need to take care of themselves.
Moreover, a hungry homeless person is a security risk. How many iPhones, GPS's, laptops, etc. are stolen in a smash-and-grab incidents? How many people get hurt? No, not by your friendly neighborhood homeless lady, but by a person who feels they have no other choice but to steal or a person who is hooked on an addictive substance and can't stop?
Poverty also does not take a lot of people. A few percent here and there will cause enough headaches to become noticeable.
And poverty is chronic in society. It's not like if you took all the homeless, poor, and hungry and shipped them off to some unknown land you'd rid of the problem. No, instead more people would be pushed into the margins, becoming poor. You have to treat the cause.
Therefore, if poverty is inherent in certain societal setups, if it is everyone's problem (i.e.: everyone pays the cost) and it takes only a small percentage of people being poor to become a big problem, it is in the interest of everyone to change the societal setup so that poverty is minimized. Your original point was that it's not the government's job to do this. I argue that it is. The government (by the people and for the people) would not be doing it's job if it wasn't taking care of me or the person next to me.
As an aside, some might argue that private charities work much more efficiently than governments when it comes to homelessness/poverty/hunger. Personally, I believe a balanced approach works best. Big slow moving government projects with lots of oversight and restrictions coupled with flexible and quick-acting private charities are much more effective than either of the two.
That's what I don't get about allegedly intellectual, allegedly fiscally conservative people who are anti-welfare. They think that it's about not "giving a free ride" to people who "don't deserve" it. They are neither intellectual nor fiscally savvy enough to understand that there is always a cost, and to help and house people with welfare -- even people who will never "contribute" -- will cost far less in the long run than the ripple effect from feeling righteous.
The government IS the people. It's not some alien body as some people (mostly in the US) seem to think.
The government is the people voting to elect some representatives, so they can get some things done for them ("the country") that need massive co-ordination and central planning.
Of course it can go astray (politicians taking advantage of their power for their own benefit and such), but it's not like there such thing as "perfection" anywhere in life, be it private or public.