There's cheaper power chairs out there.. the Air Hawk is like $2k, though obviously not for everyone. These aren't going to be fitted or customized for your injury/ability, so they'll be worse but cheaper.
There's a lot of people that use wheelchairs for part-time use. When I was considering getting one, I could walk a couple minutes but couldn't go farther without injuring myself further. Having something cheap that could get me some freedom back would have been worth it, even if it's not perfect.