Jackpot: All Bets Are Off.

 Of course there would be homeless mentions in a novel about dreams of winning a large lottery. Jackpot: All Bets Off. is a YA fiction novel by Nic Stone. The tale starts on Christmas Eve with  Rico working at a gas & go convenience store. She sells 3 Lottery tickets. One of those tickets had the winning numbers but was not turned in to collect the winnings. 

Rico had "images of the richest kid in school superimposing memories of our shelter days and smashing up against helplessness and desperatio constantly simmering beneath the surface."

Sometimes when I am around people, perhaps cousins I have not seen in many years, memories of street living bubbles to the surface. In addition to questions: Do they know I was homeless? Do they judge me unfavorably? 

Rico's younger brother tells that riches kid in school: "if it weren't for Rico we would probably be homeless." (their mother's poor money management skills coupled with low income despite holding two jobs ~ not uncommon, pre-homeless, not earning enough to pay rent and everything else)

"...for four months we lived out of the fifteen-passenger van my grandfather left to mama in his will...a very compassionate black cop discovered us one night in a Walmart parking lot and threatened to call DFACS if mama didn't move us into a shelter immediately."  (I wonder why Stone felt compelled to mention cops skin color and I do not recall learning the fate of that passenger van.)

There is one of those mega churches I associate with California. A shuttle bus has a sign saying "HELPING HANDS AIDING ATLANTA'S HOMELESS SINE 1991." 

"When the people coming off the buss dressed in the finest scapes of clothing they could come up with, I feel...conflicted." Rico muses about God.

"Seeing the mind-boggling difference between the Victorious Faith three-piece suits exiting Audis and Teslas and the attire of cobbled together by the homeless bus people isn't making me a believer." "they're all going into the same building aren't they? Why does the gulf between their respective 'blessings' seem so wide?"

Rico tells her new friend about being homeless for a while. "I feel lighter now that someone knows we were homeless, but isn't judging or repoulsted or worst of all, giving me pity-puppy eyes."