Americans seem to love to gatekeep what the poor are allowed to have or not have.
They have this image of the Welfare Queen driving a pink Cadillac to cash her welfare checks at the liquor store.
It seems that no matter how desperately destitute someone might be,
there's a person who will point at something they have,
whether it's a tent to sleep in under a bridge (a gift from an organization providing assistance to the houseless),
a bicycle that's their only means of transportation,
or a garden planted on public property,
and say "they can't be that poor if they have that!
When someone lives off of public benefit, there's a sense in which the public can have an interest in how the money is used -- its use should correlate with its intent.
That's why SNAP money is restricted to particular categories. So caring about how it's spent is already a foregone conclusion, and rightly so.
If someone wants to spend money however they like, they'll have to earn it themselves. Even inherited money carries a sense of obligation to honor the family with how it's used (like not blowing it all in a week of lavish partying in Vegas, as an extreme example).
