U.S. welfare is bureaucratic because it doesn't enjoy broad-based popular support. Conservatives don't believe it should exist, and liberals feel somehow guilty that it does exist.[1] This leaves no room for debate about how to improve service: all energy is spent simply defending the systems' existence.
[1] Hence the liberals' lionization of Clinton, whose big push on the social welfare front was the very conservative goal of cutting welfare rolls.
The goal of any welfare is to get those that can survive off of it, off of it - through gainful employment and counseling if need be. And for those that, for whatever reason, cannot survive off of it, well.. don't they deserve at the very least respect over squalor, just by being human?
[1] Hence the liberals' lionization of Clinton, whose big push on the social welfare front was the very conservative goal of cutting welfare rolls.