The sad truth is that government is interested in eradication of poverty. They show poverty as result or a destination for the nation to keep them motivated to work harder.
Are they really? Well, maybe for some and not all government. For most of the developed world, they have been able to cater for a lot of things and has been able to put some system in place for everyone to at least be able to live a day without having to go hungry or where to lay their heads. Now, that is a working government who is trying to eradicate poverty, but that does not mean you still wont have some lazy fellows who are just fond of begging all their lives.
However, talking about countries where all these things are not available, no job, no amenties, no infrastructure and the only thing would be some politicians siphoning the funds meant for these things, in such places, this would be a hard thing to tackle unless, that level of corruption is tackled first and this speaks mostly for the third world and some developing countries.