Just as a practical matter let’s say I’m a reasonably intelligent, able bodied adult, but I simply refuse to do work of any kind. Who will take care of me? Who will clothe, house and feed me? Will American society and it’s institutions just let me starve?
In your scenario, do you actively seek food aid?
If you are a single male, I think you are just about screwed in most states. If you are a female, you can get knocked up and you will get some aid so that the children don’t starve or go homeless. (That isn’t a judgement statement. It is an answer to the specific question posed by the OP).
Only to the extent I will tell people walking past “I’m hungry! Feed me!”
What social services agency will come along and rescuie me?
If you’re in a large enough city you could seek refuge in a homeless shelter and try to find “soup kitchens” for meals.
However, many homeless shelters will only permit someone to stay for a set period of time and soup kitchens provide, at best, one meal a day.
While those institutions may receive government funding or susbisdy on some level, they are mostly operated by private institutions.
if you’re enough of a nuisance (or a threat), police might arrest you for something and throw you in jail, where you’ll get food and shelter.
I suppose if you did this long enough in a town where panhandling is illegal, you’d eventually wind up in jail, where the justice system would feed you …
Arjuna34
I’m sure some sappy altruist (probably a religious one) will eventually come along and have pity on you.
With no effort on your part, probably none.
You can always have yourself committed to a mental institution (either voluntarily or involuntarily.) That way, the state could take care of you and see to your needs and you wouldn’t need to work.
If you then decide that you’d like to leave your new home and all of your new friends, you could be placed with a local mental health program (for group therapy etc.), receive SSI and a medical identification card issued by the state for your various psychotropic medications. If you remain in this program, you can have yourself committed again when you feel the need, and keep the process going.
From my experience, working in real estate: You can apply for Social Services (welfare) and get aid for a limited time. Usually, it’s three months and then you have to reapply, and a maximum time of two years tops. You will get assistance to rent a room.
If you are found to be doing drugs, or you get arrested and go to jail, assistance stops.
The only way to get lasting assistance is to be declared unfit to work (physically or mentally) or be a single female with minor children. I’ve known woman to have children or have more children to avoid working (one such person knocked out three children in 19 months!). Of course, the taxpayers are supporting these people, though many, many, many of them have something (or someone) on the side.
There are a lot of panhandlers in my area, and I’ve never heard of any of them being rescued by any social service or do-gooder. With some effort, you might find an agency that will help you a little.
Plus, once you are rescued, what are you going to do? No one will pay for you to have a place to live or for food or clothes. The best you could expect is re-integration into the workforce, and if you don’t want to work, then you’re back to panhandling (which, from the looks of it, is work in that it’s hard on the body and probably psychologically difficult).
ZJ
Exactly how lazy are you?
Are you planning on finding a nice stretch of sidewalk and sitting there for the rest of your life, making no voluntary motions of any kind?
If you’re in a public place the cops will eventually pick you up for public urination. They’ll get you a psych evaluation. If you do your catatonic act for the doctors you’ll probably be kept in the psych ward.
If you’re willing to actually talk to people and ask for food and water, and chat with the evaluating psychiatrists enough to convince them you’re not crazy, you’ll probably be able to panhandle enough money or food to keep from starving.
The hard part is shelter. Are you willing to walk to a homless shelter? Or will you sit on your corner come rain, shine, snow, hail, sleet, or wind? Are you willing to walk into a public library on cold days and sleep then, and walk around all night to keep warm? But the cops will probably pick you up if you’re sleeping on the sidewalk in plain view. How belligerant are you willing to be to go to jail? Take a swing at the cop and you might get yourself 3 hots and a cot for a couple months. If you’re willing to do some minor crimes every time you’re released, you can guarantee yourself free room and board (and medical care!) for the rest of your life.
My religion specifically says “If a man will not work, then neither shall he eat”. If you can work, but won’t, then you have made a free will choice to starve - IMHO.
…you could always get a union or government job then… 
I know that when I was able bodied and actively and aggressively seeking work, and facing homelessness, I called some agencies in Connecticut to see if there was any help for me to at least buy food and pay some sort of rent. I was told that unless I was pregnant, had children living with me, or a drug addict, there was no help available. I have to say, I was already pretty frazzled, and that statement just sort of pushed me closer to the edge. “So, if I went out and got myself a drug problem, or knocked up, the state would be willing to help me?” The woman sounded apologetic, but she confirmed that it was indeed the case.
So, in Connecticut, at least, I can’t imagine there’s any help for a person who simply isn’t willing to work, either. Or at least, I certainly hope not.
Of course there is assistance in CT and every other state for a person unwilling to work. It’s just that to get it you almost have use one of the strategies mentioned above. If you don’t want to feign mental illness or break a law, you’d have to allow yourself to fail to meet your needs for clothing, food, and shelter to such an extent that you would be picked up and taken to a hospital where you would be judged “a danger to himself or others.” (For example, being on the street in a T-shirt and boxers when the weather is near freezing or being obviously malnourshed indicates that you are a danger to yourself.) Being a danger to yourself would get you into a facility for the mentally ill where they would give you clothing, food, and shelter until you felt like leaving or they threw you out.
But you weren’t homeless, you were facing homelessness, meaning you were at risk for not being able to pay the rent.
No social service is going to pay the rent for an able bodied man who refuses to work, maybe your parents or girlfriend might, but nobody else. But once you’re on the street there are homeless shelters, missions, church basements, tent cities, underpasses, and public buildings you might be able to get shelter at.
Likewise, no social service is going to patrol the sidewalks, looking for people who seem hungry and offering them food. Standing on the sidewalk asking for food isn’t going to bring you to the attention of any social services either. However, if you’re willing to walk up to a church and claim you’re hungry and ask if they have any food for you, you’ll probably get a handout. There are missions and churches who provide food for homeless people.
Which goes back to the point, just how lazy are you? Because working the social services to get all this might take some effort beyond standing on a streetcorner demanding to be fed. It seems to me that while you’d be on the streets pretty quickly if you refuse to work, it would take some sort of effort to actually starve to death.
Camera zooms in on the attending psychiatrist scribbling notes. The sheet reads, “Not crazy, just fucking lazy.”
This was pretty much my experience after some extreme unemployment in California. What gets me is owning a car makes you ineligable for food stamps- the only thing available to an able-bodied person with no kids. So they’d rather have you sell the car (which are notrious for not getting you much return on your investment and severly limit your employment prospects.
There are a few free clinics and soup kitchens out there, but it can be difficult to find accurate information on them.