I believe you can get in contact with the city office. They will contact the person on your part and assist the person in need, if there is any.
My wife mentioned this about a homeless man that we've been seeing around recently. I suppose the city office would send someone out and see where they could help him and how.
I believe if the person you say is truly unable to take care of himself and is humble about it, the government would step in and find home care for him.
In the meantime, I've found people to be truly respectful if approached in this manner. They likely will refuse it, but if you persist, they will eventually take the help and there will be no hard feelings. As mentioned about the homeless man, we have given him dinner countless times. The first time was the most difficult, but now that he knows who we are, he'll take it and thank us, which is obviously enough for us. Unsure if we're going to pursue going to the city office to see if he's been reported yet, etc.
I mentioned the city office part because this seems like an ongoing situation. If your friend is going to care for him, he should continually do it without break... that would be a drain on them pretty quickly when we're talking cooking, cleaning, etc. versus reporting him so that care can continue and your friend can merely drop stuff by every once in a while.