Once I was talking with a beggar on the street. While talking, I was also noticing how much money people were throwing him. I concluded that he makes approximately as much money as is the average salary in my country. When I asked him how he spends the money, he said he buys alcohol, and donates the rest to the church. A girl I know has an insane aunt. The aunt spends all her disability income on buying figurines of angels. Then she has no money left for food, so her relatives bring her lunch. Yes, if we twist the meaning of the words sufficiently, these people are poor because they don't have enough money. By that I mean, if we would give them unlimited money, the beggar wouldn't have to beg anymore, and the crazy aunt would always have enough money to pay for food delivery. But it is also true that other people with comparable incomes live very different lives. Giving each of these two some kind of food-vouchers could improve their lives. Well, at least as long as they would find someone willing to trade the food-vouchers for money; which would happen quite soon. I am not saying that these two are representative for poor people on average. Just showing how "poor people are poor because they don't have enough money" can be kinda technically true and still hugely misleading.

In the short term, giving people money makes them less poor, but in the long term, it may not be so effective.