The images, I regret to say, are no longer rare visitors. They have taken up residence in our daily lives.

They are citizens — Edmontonians, our neighbours in every sense, except shelter. They own very little, and what little they do own has often been lost, taken, or bartered away in the hard economy of survival. Not always through wrongdoing. Often through necessity.

They look hungry. They look confused. They look worn down by the sheer labour of staying alive.

And increasingly — this is the part that stops you cold — they are in wheelchairs.

Not inside apartments. Not in supportive housing. Not in hospitals, where care is supposed to gather and hold.

No. They are on the streets. On the sidewalks. Parked, as it were, in full public view, as if daring us not to notice. Cardboard solicitations for money.

I began seeing homeless people in wheelchairs on Edmonton streets about three years ago. And I remember thinking — because thinking is unavoidable at moments like this — how does this happen here? In this city? In this country, that prides itself on decency?

At first, I told myself it must be temporary. A blip. A passing failure that would correct itself. But reality has a way of overruling comfort.

This was........

© Edmonton Sun