Torchiere is, what? A 40-something? In real professions one's 40s and 50s are prime earning years.
So a big part of Torchiere's problems are her choices: a "career" with built-in brevity; declining to get an education or learn a skill; squandering what money she "earned"; being such a PITA that no one wants to rent to her or hire her; lifestyle decisions incompatible with getting and holding down a job.
Were she owning her situation as a consequence of her past decisions, I might be able to summon some sympathy. Instead she's willfully blind to her past determining her present, is compounding her troubles, and is begging for help in ... sustaining and worsening her troubles. I can't be sympathetic with that; I suspect even some DU-folk are of the same mind, if less willing to say so on their open forum(s).