It's truly difficult to catch up in North America if you fall behind.
1) Homeless shelters are full of junkies. If you are trying to get your shit together (recovering yourself), you will perpetually be triggered by other junkies. They use dope inside the shelters too, the staff don't really do shit. Relapse rates are high.
2) Junkies will keep stealing your shit every-time you buy new tools, equipment, etc.
3) Homeless shelters are full of bed bugs, cockroaches - embarrassing to have to go to work, school, see friends, when you have those crawling on you.
4) Actual good, affordable housing is prioritized to niggers and illegal goblin looking people. Otherwise you'll be living with other junkies in an SRO full of rats, and room full of bed bugs cockroaches, mold. Not inspiring.
The whole system wants you to remain sick so they can feed off of you through the rehab programs. But the real picture is, they want you destroyed. The safety net is actually a meat-grinder - watch your step.
Also, a lot of the people that work at the shelters are ex-prisoners in a program where they are reintroduced into society by being given jobs as social workers, cooks, janitors, etc. Why is this a problem? Because of quick release, a lot of rapists and murderers only get 2 years of time - you think a person like that will come to their sense in that amount of time? It takes 2 years to get over a break up, let alone murdering or raping someone. So now you have the most serious predators, released early, who are given jobs, to prey upon others who are fucked up - many of them are even given jobs around females / teenagers.
Whole system is absurd, backwards, and insane.