Why assume it's driven by desperation rather than alienation?

It doesn't take desperation to "raid [one]'s own community of basic infrastructure" -- the news shows rich and very un-desperate people doing that right in the open every day, both with and without the protection of the law.

What it does take is people just not caring about each other very much.

It would indeed be great to have a society where even the worst off could be safe and secure, but that seems orthogonal to the problem of why people take from others like this. This is not stealing bread for the day's meal.