A part-time job making $8.00 per hour isn't shit. That's enough money for gas for the week.
Actually...
As I spent time in the trailer park, both living then later owning properties -
I've seen people get out of rehab, jail, divorce, whatever, and turn things around. You can get an efficiency - 1 BR with a bed and tv and bathroom - for $150 a week around here with no problem, and $100 a week if you don't mind bugs.
You go to Labor pool, AbleBody, ManPower, whatever your local day labor place is. You make $10 an hour, you might be digging ditches, you might be getting walmart shopping carts, who knows. But you can make $80 per day. That's $400 per week you can earn, just working 5 days and no nights or weekends. Spend 100 on rent, and 100 on bus/food, and you put away $200 per wk.
Go down to your local community college on your first day off. Sign up. You'll get grants and loans out the ass. They'll pay for all your classes and you'll have a few grand left over per semester to get yourself a better place to stay, better car, better everything.
I was 18 and dead broke living in the trailer park, playing basketball every day, no plan for college, no car, no job, etc. No one in my family on either side has ever finished college, and only a few ever walked the high school stage. I got a job at the grocery store (walked 2 miles to work in FL heat until I could afford a bike, rode till I could afford a shitty car with no A/C). I got a car, applied at college, got loans, got books, kept working. Today I'm an MBA with a teaching degree and multiple computer certifications, I work 5 hours a day from home in my PJs while playing with my son, and I play in a band at night for fun. I do what I want in life now, because I worked so hard as a youth. My brother and sister are still poor, wallowing in the same mess I came from.
You CAN get ahead in America, you just have to bust your ass and not be stupid with your $.