"tough love" is a very patronising concept. the poor don't need to be "pushed to be self-reliant" (which, if you read the article, is far more a part of the problem than of the solution); they need the people maintaining the current system to stop screwing them over at every turn.

a good start would be to find ways of eliminating "poor taxes" (i.e. the myriad ways in which poor people end up paying more than rich people for the same goods and services), and to replace intrusive criterion-based aid programs with simply giving the poor money (something that studies have proven to be more effective), possibly by way of a negative tax bracket.