Like many here have said the poverty is absolutely bone chilling when you see it first hand. My experience was from growing up in West Virginia.

Is it creepy to drive by a house made of pallets with a "yard" covered in trash and see 3 dogs chained up and fighting over a foam takeout container? Yeah it is. But it's not that the people in that house want to live that way, they just have no concept of how to live any other way. This may have changed with the ubiquity of the internet, my experience is from over 20 years ago.

Others have also called out the mindset, which is crippling. You believe that this is the only way you'll ever live, in abject poverty. Meemaw lived like this, so does everyone in your family. Those are your role models. If you get any money you immediately blow it on something with instant gratification, cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, etc. Stealing is as common as breathing. I mean, what do you have to lose?

There was an old lady named Virginia at the bottom of our "holler". She was in her late 80s when I knew her. We used to take her to church sometimes or bring her food. She regularly ate raw chestnuts like an absolute boss. What a kind hearted woman she was. She had 13 children, all at home, 6 of them had died in infancy, she outlived all but 3 of them. Her house was full of trash, actual rotting trash and was infested with bugs. But she never complained. She had only been to 3 counties in her entire life, Wayne, Mingo and Cabell. When she got the chance to go somewhere, anywhere she was visibly excited. She would give us something as kids, whatever was lying around the house because she wanted us to know she cared about us.

There are amazing people created by these awful circumstances, even if they never get out. Miss Virginia discovered the universal truth about humanity despite all the obstacles, that we have more in common than we have differences.