to member again

i don't usually wish for stories but some are so rarely told. i see so many street people everyday, some are even regulars, like the horribly stooped woman on the corner who sells her paintings or the pig-tailed, girlish little goth woman who stands at the front entrance, grimly posing with her cardboard sign as i stand inside at the cash register, watching her during the lulls. struck by how our roles nearly rhyme, making ourselves available to conduct transactions, both of us acting as representatives: me for a business & her for poverty, only hers is a much smaller sign. i often assume they are homeless but maybe street people, people who scratch out their survival on the street, might be more accurate. were you always like this? of course not. i wasn't always like this either. was it a life long descent that landed you here or a sudden precipitous drop? was it the economy? addiction? health crisis? abusive partner or family? all of the above? i want to know where they come from, both literally & psychically. i want them to be people, they are people, but admitted people. when we use the word "remember" to talk about something that happened in the past that is pulled into the present by the story we tell that approximates the experience had, i like to think "member again," that something or someone had once been a member and were buried in an avalanche of time, neglect, or collectively willed blindness. buried in blindness:  to be present in public & yet unseen. i also want to know what will happen to them, where does the story go from here? are they imprisoned or hospitalized, do they find treatment, do they ever recover? there is the wound that got them there & then there's the wound or wounds they receive on the street, its cost. why is it so hard to admit them? if someone is seriously injured & walks into your store, bleeding, do we tell them "sorry, you need to bleed somewhere else?" or do we recognize that some wounds are so severe that they need to be treated immediately, that some beings are recognized as a part of us, a member, and need immediate help. but who do you call when you are psychologically injured? why isn't there a psychic ambulance?