Why is questioning poverty a Gulf Coast thing?

I live just off a backroads highway in Virginia, between two cities. My house is waaaaay in the backroads, and can be accessed most easily by one of two roads off that backroads highway. One of those roads is between the sides of a lumberyard/sawmill.

"What the hell is he babbling about?" For the last 2 weeks or 10 days, there has been a guy (perhaps more people, but definitely a guy) and his tiny dog who have been spending the night in the parking lot of that sawmill. I know this because I drive by every night after hanging out/staying late for work/grocery shopping/whatever. The guy just pulls into the parking lot, stops the car, lets the dog out on the ground, and then presumably sleeps either in the cab or the bed. I have not investigated at length because it's hard to approach such a thing (at least for one of my limited social skills) without being in some way ... condescending. I guess the guy does manual labor, maybe even at the mill, and gets paid under the table, and eeks his livelihood out staying in the parking lot. His dog sometimes chases my car if I drive by slowly enough. I try not to run it over -- why take even more from the guy? How can people in this country so easily pour money into the lives of people too stupid to live above sea level, and leave this guy to live in a truck in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere?