This is the main problem with this whole idea: how do we establish who is "poor enough?"
If you don't have enough food to eat, if you can't get to your job, if you can't afford healthcare (assuming a screwed-up country like ours with no UHC), if you can't heat your home in the winter, etc. There are very well-known metrics for determining poverty in First World countries. It's not exactly an obscure or unstudied subject.
Back in my country, it was fairly customary for children to live with their parents, even after they are married, and only get a place of their own much later. Usually that would be an apartment. Sometimes we had whole families living in the same house for generations. Here, everyone wants their own house, and if they lose a job, they're homeless. This is why I don't get the issue with foreclosures being portrayed as such a horrible thing. I would say, move back in with your parents, and use your family for support, or at least downgrade to an apartment, but it's being shown as this terrible thing that will leave families out on the street.
Well now, not everyone has a family to fall back on. And the whole American Dream mentality teaches people that they must be some kind of loser to not have a house or be living with their parents past their early 20s, so you have that social pressure pushing down on them, which makes the whole situation seem pretty tragic. You also have to remember that this is what you're seeing in the news media, and the media panders to the fears of middle-class whites. That's why you'll see a thousand stories about a middle-management type losing his house before you'll see a single story about poor people being evicted from their apartments.
My parents, on the other hand, make six figures each, but have about $20,000 a month in bills, and support my sick grandparents on my mom's side, and my family back in my home country. Both of my parents are working extremely hard morning to night, have only one old busted car between the two of them, and my mom sometimes can't afford to buy new pantyhose. After all expenses, their remaining money every month is also maybe $100. Are they poor?
Yeah, stories like this. People who make $18,000 a year and get no health insurance and no welfare would LOVE to have your parents' problems. I also don't think your friend could be affording to send money to other countries or pay for sick grandparents on $100 a month in income, so the situations are hardly comparable. Honestly it sounds like one of those awful New York Times articles about the poor family who's only making $250k a year and now they can barely afford their kids' pricey private elementary school or (God forbid!) their live-in maid. Living beyond your means is living beyond your means no matter what your income bracket.