This is common.
Source: I did some time in a halfway house (which is where you go if you either have a minor offense, or are waiting to go to jail, or have just got out of jail and need someway to adjust back to normal life.)
This was quite an eye opening experience. There were maybe 30 or 40 people at this house, and I would say that at least 3 of them, likely a lot more, were in there for reasons of "I need a home so I committed a minor offense to purposely go to jail". One of them was an elderly gentleman who robbed a bank with a note. Another one was a guy maybe in his forties who had done something similar.
A Halfway house is not pleasant, but it would be better than the streets. You have your freedom restricted, but you don't have guards either. The food is typically past due spoiled food from the local grocery, and it literally would often have mold. Likewise, you had to do your chores, like cooking, cleaning, etc., which for me typically meant doing dishes for the group, along with regular cleanup.
Most people also had jobs that they were allowed to leave the house for. Typically these were not high paying, but labor.
Some of the people there had medical needs or mental medication, which was dished out through a guarded room. I think this was free, but those who had meds were required to take them.
Lots of people in there were there for drug related reasons - typically selling as low level dealers. Those people were also typically on the verge of homelessness anyway. One of my roommates, for example, had a prostitute for a mom, and sold drugs to survive.
There were a few other people with more major offenses.
There were a few that were mentally not all there, or had pretty bad emotional issues, etc. A bonus was there was a counselor who would come occasionally, and that was good for those who needed it.
The one weird takeaway from it, was that every person in there was reasonably decent to live with. I would have thought that I would always have to watch my back, based on all the TV shows and such, but in reality I had a computer and a CD player, that I just kept in my room, trusting nobody would take them, and nobody did. I suppose that may be a major difference between prison and a halfway house.
This was in Washington State.