Have you ever known someone addicted to hard drugs? What gets them started on it before the transition into homelessness? Safe bet is on the scenario that they're in a stressful, economically insecure situation (including insecurely housed), but still housed, when they begin diving deeper into the drug habit.
Your first question is answered in my original post. I grew up in an affluent community where almost nobody was economically insecure. The typical heroin addict was a high school kid with rich parents. Their parents would eventually cut them off financially and kick them out of the house after all the expensive rehabs failed. They'd usually drop out of high school and spend their time panhandling around touristy areas and then go to the projects to buy and use drugs. If they were a girl, prostitution was pretty likely at this phase as well. Many people I went to school with followed this pattern. Most are dead now, some in and out of jail and still bumming around.
Then your anecdotal cases are not generalizable to the wider public and I'm not sure why you're acting as if your experience is comparable to what's being discussed in this thread. "Affluent" is a relative term, by definition, referring to only a couple percent at most of the population.
