Every morning on her drive to work in the heart of Calgary, Dominika Rozlowski scours the streets and underpasses, bottle depots and long lines outside shelters — trying to spot a familiar face in a crowd of people: the face of her sister.
“I just kept looking, everyday I thought of her,” Rozlowski said.
It’s been a decade since the Airdrie resident last saw her sister Joanna.
Rozlowski clenches a picture of the 50-year-old mother-of-three in her hands. Joanna is beautiful, with a beaming smile and bright blonde hair.
The joy in that picture, however, was overshadowed by an insurmountable battle with mental illness and addiction that led Joanna to a years-long life on the streets.
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“Hospitals, we tried to get a mental health order, we tried to take her home, I tried to keep her in at my place — we were just so exhausted that finally we just …