These days folks breaking into cars are most likely addicts with scrambled brains - it's not something most would be doing if they were clean. Trying to solve it with just a living wage would be futile since they would have to be "functional" addicts to hold down a job AND properly budget for their habit... and that's not what happens in most cases lol.

Not sure if anyone is familiar with the ward at the Portsmouth Hospital, but it's just a constant stream of addicts detoxing and then being sent to longer rehab programs. I spoke with a girl there who was given 22 grand in cash from Social Security back payments, and she vented to me now that she was clean and thinking clearly, "holy shit, how can they just give $22k to an addict? What do you think I did with it?"

Drug use like this is a sign that a lot of folks are being overlooked in our communities, and we've all been paying for it in one form or another. Given what I've seen of the culture and lifestyle, it almost always starts in childhood too. 40% of children in Belknap county grow up being exposed to some form of abuse, and those stats are probably very similar in other areas. This is the real issue we should be focusing on - how to prevent this behavior from happening in the first place. Money alone doesn't address cultural problems.