There are all sorts of techniques/tricks/hacks (depending on your style) of using the system that does not require 1% kind of income. Sort of that line from The Firm, "I want to bend the law as far as I can without breaking it." You can form a corp and place all of your assets in it, then have your employer hire the corp and not you so you earn no income. You don't own a house, but your corp does and allows you to stay there. Stuff that sounds shady AF, but is legal but might require you to spend a few hours going over paperwork with members of the gov't from time to time
edit: removing the repeated comments