She's homeless by choice. She could go live in her mom's mansion if she wanted to. (Or get a fucking a job.) It's not like she's out of options. These people are not struggling.
Madness string 92888
Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. Ultimately the determining feature is how well it's understood in practice, or in retrospect. If a thousand years later nobody still understands it and has made no progress toward understanding it, maybe it is magic... or maybe they're just idiots.