My mother was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer which had already spread to her stomach, intestines, and pancreas. On top of MS, it meant she ended up frail and in a wheelchair, and my father—who did consultancy work—was forced to care for her full time because his income meant he didn’t qualify for nursing care.
They had to spend their retirement funds, then sell off their furniture, and finally had to walk away from their mortgage. They kept their expensive car through all of this because my mother needed some way to get to her medical appointments. They even ended up pawning their wedding rings before they were forced to give up their car because they had absolutely nothing left.
(I ended up supporting them for two years on my credit cards so they wouldn’t starve while they learned how to be poor.)
A car means independence. Everything becomes much, much more difficult without a car because our ugly consumer culture has been built entirely around the car now. If you’re facing the added challenge of freshly-experienced destitution and/or health challenges (which is often the source of destitution), a vehicle can mean the difference between keeping your options open and being locked into a degrading cycle of impoverishment accompanied by hat-in-hand pleading with bureaucratic gatekeepers for the basic necessities.