Being on welfare doesn't make you a criminal.
True. However, as
Dragonlady alluded, there's a difference between someone simply being down on their luck, elderly or infirm and someone who was raised as a welfare child to become a welfare adult.
People can't respect anything if they can't respect themselves. People who think mooching off others or being given other people's money is a right are not good citizens even if they are not convicted criminals.
Thanks for your work in a food pantry. I'm sure you and your wife have seen as my wife and I have seen that far too many of those people are in need of mental health care, but they aren't getting it. While government-funded mental health care is weak, at best, the major problem is there is no law requiring these people to get help and most of them think they are fine.