The declining welfare state in Turkey since the 1980s has privatized many social services publicly provided in the past. For the poor, however, paying for these services proves to be impossible. Justice and Development Party (JDP) has reformed and launched various social assistance policies in response to increasing level of poverty since 2003. As a custodian, the Ministry of Family, Work, and Social Services transferred the implementation of those polices to non-governmental organizations and local administrations. However, a closer examination suggests that a new welfare system has been emerging that is not right-based but rather arbitrary, selective and clientelist. One significant characteristics of the beneficiaries of social assistance programs are that they are mostly women. This paper aims to provide demographic characteristics about this group who receive both cash transfers and in-kind assistance. The assistance programs are of utmost importance for the survival of the poor. The programs, however, are far from getting the poor out of the poverty-social assistance cycle but make them dependence of this irregular and unreliable support that increases during critical times for political support. This paper, part of a book project that aims to study the social assistance programs their characteristics in Turkey, relies on both qualitative data and Household Budget Surveys by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK) (2003-2016). The latter allow one to identify individuals by gender and social classes that they belong. It is also possible to categorize social assistance by type (e.g., in-kind and cash) and the source (e.g., the state, non-governmental organizations, municipalities, etc.).