What is the safest way for a partially disabled person in the USA to use prison for food and shelter as an alternative to dying homeless in a gutter on a cold rainy night?
Exactly! Make sure it's a felony otherwise you might be billed for every day you're in jail. Plus, a good enough felony will get you to prison for a good long time. Basically, anything with "grand" in the front of it.
You can end up paying room and board, mandatory counseling, classes, drug tests, etc. Plus phone calls are outrageously expensive. It's a total racket.
Take a piece of all future income until it's paid off of you pass away. At least here you can personally bankrupt once in a life time and live on "lowest livable" amount of money for five years and then get the debts "forgiven" except those accrued during the five year period.
It's a hassle to apply and get granted though, usually not the privacy invasion invasion a recently released care to subject to