I quit high school, tested into college, was "asked" to take time outs from college twice, punched my dad in the face and ended up homeless until I found shelter in the garden shed of a PTSD Vietnam War Veteran, was in an abusive relationship which I quit by jumping out of her moving car, drove all over California as an anti-nuclear activist, and had quite a few jobs involving either heavy manual labor or lab work.
I don't know what personality traits I had that convinced people to look after me. At times even the police looked after me when I was at my worst.
Part of it was, yes, I was a white guy, but I think another part was that I was always putting myself out there even in times I just wanted to be invisible, maybe especially those times. I didn't have any patience sitting at home, especially not my parents' home which was always a crowded place of tremendous chaos.
Government programs work, those that get young people out of the house, these lost young men especially. The State of California and a few Federal grants paid for most of my college, I paid for housing and various student fees. That got me out of the house.
My kids went off to college. But that's not for everyone. My dad and my father-in-law volunteered for military service hoping that volunteering would give them some choices where they ended up rather than waiting to be drafted. My dad was a "Radar O'Reilly" Army medical clerk, my father-in-law was a Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines. It was just dumb luck they didn't end up on the battlefields of Korea. My dad and my father-in-law both went to college afterwards, much of that paid for by the government. My children did not get that kind of government support.
If my kids hadn't gone off to college, and hadn't been itching to get away from home regardless, I don't know what I would have recommended. "Get a job, kid!" ain't enough, especially when jobs are scarce.
Our society could be far more aggressive with programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 'thirties, only echoes of which remain today, such as the California Conservation Corps or similar programs in other states.
https://ccc.ca.gov/
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