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After paying rent, buying groceries and purchasing other essentials, Nigel Kirk barely has any money left for a $44 low-income monthly Calgary Transit pass.

Kirk has found himself begging for transit tickets or cashing in empty bottles to pay for a needed bus ride.

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When she lived in transitional housing, Hilary Chapple would watch housemates desperately plead for bus tickets just to go to work.

Chapple nearly didn’t show up for her first meeting of a group called Poverty Talks, because she didn’t have money for a bus ticket to get there.

At the Women’s Centre of Calgary, Sarelle Azuelos hears again and again from women who struggle to do everyday tasks such as picking up their children, going to the doctor or buying groceries, because the cost of getting around Calgary is simply too high.

Kirk, Chapple, Azuelos and several others shared their heart-wrenching stories with a city committee on Wednesday morning, in an attempt to urge councillors to lower the cost of a monthly low-income Calgary Transit pass.