Research in metropolitan cities of the Global North, such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, or Paris, has depicted the messy character of neoliberal reforms addressing only street homelessness and the visible poor. We set out a conceptual framework for the comparative study of poverty taking into account both its visible and invisible aspects in Southern European cities. Contested landscapes of poverty assistance are being reshaped by competing policy experimentations: those compatible with market logics and conservative values for managing the visible poor and those orientated to community development, recognising the rights and the needs of the poor. Times of crisis are opportune to problematise governmentalities of rolling with neoliberalism by questioning the assumptions of policies and their effects and to shape progressive experiments.