I was brought up on a council estate. I don't remember going without anything, but you could feel poverty in the air.
I broke out of it via education and a mantra that noone is better than me, we are all equal. And I've done well from that mantra. But i know we are all only a few weeks away from poverty even the very rich.
I know from my childhood, poverty meant no toilet paper, no money for electric or gas - candles and matches were close at hand. and dripping otr tomato ketchup butties. There were no food banks and people did low paid odd jobs cash in hand to get by. Theft was rife. People in and out of prison for petty crimes.
I don't know what poverty means today. We have centrally heated homes, but maybe finding money for utilities is just as hard and getting harder as utility companies continue to make billions in profits for their shareholders.
The whole system keeps people poor. What's needed is a full reform.
Can you create a co-op with others in a similar situ to you and provide shared childcare so each of those in the co op can work longer hours? Are you arty/creative? Can you sell any of your work? Have you looked at being an advocate/leader for weight watchers/ Slimming World etc? Can you offer classes - yoga / pilates etc?
I'm sure others have good ideas too.
As my son tells me, if we focus on the negative, that's all we see and experience. If we think about the positives, soon it's all we know. IE change has to come from you OP. I know that's easy to say and your motivation is probably low, so take a deep breath and have a good think about what you want, what you need, how you get to where you want and qgat you'll do when you get there. Then go build the plan abd just do it. :)
Big hugs and good luck.