["Sociological Forum, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis paper examines how organizationally supported resistance to paternalism and palliation unfolds on the frontlines of poverty governance. Sociological research shows that poverty in the United States is often managed through paternalist behavioral control or palliative minimalism. While frontline welfare workers sometimes provide more robust, client‐directed care, such resistance is typically sporadic because it lacks organizational support. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a nonprofit committed to caring on chronically unhoused people's terms, I develop a theory of frontline labor as care in motion. I identify three trajectories that trace movement between approaches to care: circles of resistance, spirals into paternalism, and spirals into palliation. Resistance involved iterative relationship building, flexibility, advocacy, and reflection, and was most sustainable when workers could marshal the resources clients needed. Care spiraled into paternalism when horizontal pressures and client behavior threatened client well‐being, and into palliation when vertical pressures and client behavior threatened case manager well‐being. Yet these shifts were not final. Supervisory support, collective reflection, and witnessing client suffering often reanimated resistance. This paper contributes to poverty governance and care scholarship by theorizing the ethical, relational, practical, and political struggles that shape movement between approaches to frontline care.\n"]