[JohnMakin]

As a more personal note, and without responding to some other victim-blamy comments in the larger thread that kind of irritate me, the only way I got out of my situation was a big (to me, a similar amount as being discussed in this thread) financial gambling windfall that led me to being able to purchase a cheap vehicle and expand the hours I was able to work due to having semi-reliable (it was a cheap ford piece of crap that constantly broke, but it was something) vehicle. From there I was able to enroll in community college, which luckily was free-ish for the income I was at, which is way too low of a threshold. I could not qualify for any kind of government aid whatsoever despite living in "welfare state" CA because at $15,032 a year I was well, well over the limit of what qualified you for food stamp assistance or anything like that. Pre-ACA healthcare was completely out of the question and I amassed $200,000 in medical debt that sidelined me for many years before it fell off my credit report.

I am very lucky in that things panned out (relatively, I still deal with residual issues due to living that way for as long as I did, about 15 years) and I was somehow able to finish school due to traits I believe not many people are lucky enough to have. I don't believe at all that many people in this situation are there of their own fault, and I'd die on that hill, but I can only provide my own brief story and some really basic cost of living statistics that are very easy to look up. It's bleak out there.