1."I just moved in with my elderly parents. I’m in my 40s, and they are healthier than I am. I have a full-time job, but I can’t afford to live on my own due to disability and the cost of healthcare.

Alamelu, a gray-haired woman who wears a bright pink sari and a gap-tooth smile, has lived in the Kalvari Nagar leprosy colony in India for 22 years and another colony before that. Her family sent her ...