Shame that it'd be pretty much impossible to implement. Things like Milk Tokens still exist, and actually I saw a Council run scheme giving food (not money) to needy families on the news yesterday.
We do try and do it though, take the Social Fund for example. A person will say I need £x amount of money to get a new fridge cos the old one broke, and new carpets cos we had a flood and so on. These cases are looked at individually, and money may or may not be given - but when it is handed over it's just in good faith that we say 'here is the money for your new sofa'. If they spend it on drugs instead, well, not alot we can do about it. Any sort of even miniscule change will cost millions to implement, due to the number of people it will affect. Take the actual benefit computer system - it's a horribly archaic system from the 80s but due to 'financial reasons' it has never been properly updated, or better, replaced. It's like working in MS-DOS
Thing is your families income and capital is not assessed when claiming Housing Benefit and Income Support. Should it be? Well, perhaps, but for the time being the only things that will be looked at are your personal circumstances, and the earnings and capital you and your partner (if applicable) have. This may change with the introduction of Universal Credit - we don't really know yet.
We are pretty harsh in some areas when it comes to money in the family when claiming though - the best example is money received as a prize, could be in the form of lottery wins, or bingo, etc. A really good example, a few years ago a chap won £30k on a tv quiz show. He didn't tell us immediately, so was overpaid for that until the time we found out, and then when he was aware he had to much capital he tried to get rid of it so he could carry on claiming. Gave £10k to his wife, who took the money and ran. Gave £10k to his son, and spent ~£5k on a car. That put him under the threshold, but in the eyes of 'the soc' the capital is still viewed as being his He ended up with his life in tatters, all for winning a quiz show on tv. Even had to get rid of his car so he had some money to live on
Is this a good time to mention I and my colleagues do recover a fair bit of money back for the tax payer from these horrible nasty layabouts ugh sorry poor unfortunate souls?