Poverty and unemployment are on the rise among Canadian youth. Reimagining Intervention in Young Lives looks at the issue from the perspective of those most affected, revealing the difficulties young people encounter with the “support system.” In-depth interviews with forty-five young people in Ottawa reveal that solutions do exist, predicated on recognition that the problem lies not with incorrigible youth, but with a social-aid structure that imposes barriers to success. Intervention is necessary, argue the authors, but not so much in the lives of young people as in the faulty structures that incorrectly presume how they interpret risk, poverty, and their own potential.