...and those who realize they have enough ignore the rich and are out living how they want to be (camping, hiking, taking photos, etc.)
If you only could. The problem is that in the US a great portion of taxes are locally raised and spent, and the way of dealing with poverty is to price the poor out of areas where they aren't wanted.
To get access to halfway decent schools you need to move to the suburbs, and what's available there in housing is hugely outsized. You cannot save on heating, cooling, cleaning and enclosed space, nevermind the commute, because that economic option does not exist. So you bite the bullet with everyone else and you cannot choose not to play the game.
If only. That would be a great form of funding community governance. Where local communities help themselves up, instead of practically begging for scraps from a wealthy government that really doesn't care until it gets them votes.
Change has to come from within. And it won't come so long as people think like you. i.e. "Change can come when funding comes from better places" Which completely ignores the real problems and real difficulties facing real people in those places you seem to not want to live in. Ask yourself why you don't want to live there.
Meanwhile any child unlucky enough to grow up poor is greated with decay and dysfunction at every turn, is never given the education nor the opportunities to succeed, or have interests much above basic survival. Upward mobility is basically zero. Welcome to feudal America.
We as a society can only share blame for one generation. The next one is on the parents.
As someone who has come from a poor family, I know full well what sacrifice and hard work can do to uplift your children's prospects in the world. Even if that means drastic life changes. And as a consequence of that, I will not accept peoples' excuses for remaining in poverty. Nor will I share the blame for their failings.
I, and many people I know are doing it. Of course, like anything worth doing, it takes hard work and dedication, but it certainly can be done.