I don't think finishing a four-year degree is in the cards right now, and there's little seed money she could raise. I'm told that there are few jobs in the area, and enough demand for the ones that do open up that her background excludes her. What kind of steps can she take to improve her standard of living in the short-term while raising her prospects in the long term?
So far I've thought of some obvious things, like: 1) Cooking local gluten-free products, to be sold at farmers' markets and the like -- perhaps with some of the proceeds going to research
2) Using freelancer sites like Odesk to try and find writing-related work
I'd appreciate HN's thoughts on the plausibility of these and other ideas. As an engineer, I don't really know what it's like to be in this kind of situation.