Poverty-stricken holy man welcomes in family (5)
I believe the answer is:
skint
'poverty-stricken' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'holy man welcomes in family' is the wordplay.
'holy man' becomes 'st' (abbreviation for saint).
'welcomes' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'invites in').
'in family' becomes 'kin' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'st' going around 'kin' is 'SKINT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for skint that I've seen before include "Hard-up" , "Hard up (sl.)" , "On one's uppers" , "bust" , "Hard up (slang)" .)