Poverty is why so many poor kids are on the streets

Where I came from, it was the norm for kids to be on the streets doing criminal activity. For me, I started selling drugs and stealing cars at the age of 14 and ended up in juvie 5 times before I turned 18. Like most of those kids, I was raised by a single mom working multiple jobs and didn’t have time to parent us. Our dads were either absent or locked up. My dad was never around. From my time in juvie, literally most of the kids I met in my situation had the same home environment that I had. You can’t expect kids to have no parental guidance and be good. The streets were our life. It’s a poverty issue. If my mom was paid a living wage, she wouldn’t have had to work multiple jobs and she’d have a lot more time to spend with me and I wouldn’t be on the streets