BY: HANK LANGMIRE
This past week I was shocked and disgusted after reading about how the city totally failed to provide our homeless with adequate shelter from the extreme cold. It was shameful, and thank goodness we’re past the worst of it. Now that it’s only ten degrees below zero outside, it’s not something we need to worry about anymore. Right?
I mean, they really should have more on the ball about getting the armouries open last week—last Tuesday I had to wait 20 minutes outside for a bus, so I can sympathize—but things are probably fine now.
I’m not saying that I only show consideration or compassion when people are being met with the absolute worst conditions and are in grave danger of freezing to death. I’m just saying that it’s hard to keep that passionate outcry going for more than a week.
-30 is a great number to start caring at. It’s big and flashy, it’s “extreme cold.” Maybe I can give you -25, but above that it gets kind of hard to give a shit.
It’s just ten degrees below the freezing point of water outside. Surely any self respecting Canadian can shrug that off. I walked to my corner store without my scarf today, and I don’t even have whatever kind of superhuman cold resistance I’m just assuming homeless people possess.
My three bedroom home in the suburbs is pretty cold (at least six people have told me that), so there can’t really be that much of difference between sleeping in my bed at night and sleeping on the sidewalk. Most of them have those big coats, so it can’t be completely awful.
You have to understand, I’m like this when I’m donating to any other charitable cause. When you’re asked to contribute to relief efforts for victims of war, you need to really evaluate things and ask yourself: “is this actually a war, or is it more of an armed conflict?”
“Is there a high chance our homeless will freeze this month, or just a mild chance?”
Trust me, if it gets really cold again I will make an effort. I will share and retweet the hell out those news articles, believe me. But really, what are the chances of that even happening in the next two months of Winter? Or most of Spring, and then Fall?
