For me, How the American Heartland Turned Red by Stephanie Ternullo does a nice job of tracking this.

I saw religious groups take over more and more of the public spaces in my youth because these institutions offered immediate access to needed services and didn't (immediately) treat with suspicion anyone who went to them for help; not so with the government options, which were resource-intensive, short-term, and quite invasive in trying to address your concerns (more albeit well-intended focused on data collection than community inclusion and integration into support structures.)

That said, joining the religious groups meant you were all in and leaving them can leave you and yours destitute, rather like joining the Republican party appears to involve sometimes. But as inequality skyrockets, people struggle to find security, and states move to further criminalize poverty, these 'all-in' institutions offer a lower barrier to getting what we all need to make it through another day: community and material support.)

The Democratic leadership seems to overlook this due largely to the leadership's insular, pay-to-play (not saying the Republicans don't do this, but so do all high-level Dem leaders - you try to meet their speaker fee requirements), office politicking reaction to issues.

It feels (FEELS) like Democratic leaders are selling future solutions when we really just need problem-solving. I know this is a false equivalency, but it's one that is understandably easy to make in a lot of struggling socioeconomic environments. Equivocating just makes the leadership look more self-involved and out of touch.