What is the best option to provide for people who are homeless in the cold?

It’s going to be very cold over the next few days in my area and I’d like to buy something for the people who are homeless, particularly ones who won’t be in a shelter.

For budgeting, there is one shelter in my area for adults and one for children/teenagers. I don’t know how many people would not have shelter but in the past, I have planned for 40 people when providing food for people in a shelter.

My budget is about $200 USD; what would be the most useful? thermal blankets? hot food?

Edit: thanks to all who responded. I called the shelter and the most needed items are (1) sleeping bags (2) very warm gloves to prevent frostbite (3) boots

cashsky,

You are a good human.

I have heard clean dry socks and shoes are a huge necessity since your extremities get cold the fastest, especially if it’s expected to snow or rain.

pineapple_pizza,

+1 I bought new shoes and decided to give my old ones away on the street. Wasn’t hard, met some nice and appreciative people. Just watch out for people that obviously aren’t your size, they’ll just resell

unmagical,

They’ll just resell

This isn’t necessarily true. A lot of encampments develop social roles, there’s often someone who can tend to wounds, someone who knows how to cook anything using a wide variety of heat sources, someone that keeps track of the individual needs of everyone else at the camp, someone who can cut hair, someone who collects stuff for distribution within the camp, etc.

In a lot of cases physical donations will end up at the camp and either be shared when possible or redistributed to a specific person that can use it.

There are of course unhoused people that don’t make it to camps or who have left camps, and if they resell the boots, so what? You’re still helping them.

chepox,

Yo! I am unsure on how to maximize your help but I just want to say people like you are the real heroes. Thank you!

THE_ANON,

(Insert homelander saying you are the real hero image .jpeg)

PP_BOY_, (edited )
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

Honestly? Just give the $200 to the shelter to spend on whatever they think they need. As someone who used to volunteer at a no-kill shelter, everybody wants to donate a bag of dog food but no one wants to donate cash. After a certain point, we were throwing away old stock of unopened dog food because we ran out of storage for it.

Edit: completely misread the part about helping people specifically not in a shelter. My main point still stands though, I think most unhoused people would take the cash over material goods.

foggy,

…bro

PP_BOY_,
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

?

cashsky,

Reread OPs post

foggy, (edited )

Your edit is still…

You know we’re not talking about dogs here, right homie?

And if yes… You don’t really think there are homeless shelters that are… Not “no-kill”, right?

PP_BOY_,
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

You know we’re not talking about dogs here, right homie?

Yes, but the point still stands. Everyone loves the grand gesture of walking in and plopping a 20lb bag of chow on the counter or heroically presenting a homeless man on the corner with a brand new The North Face coat with tags on it.

I’m speaking from an American perspective for this next part, so if OP isn’t from America they can disregard it, but the whole gift-giving ritual (which this is) makes people feel embarrassed for giving cash outright, like “oh, you couldn’t think of anything to get them?” It’s a difficult truth to swallow but the truth is that most community closets, food banks, etc. are more than stocked with the goods themselves. Homeless people in most of the country have at least some access to these basic goods. What they don’t have is money to save for either A) their specific needs that only they know about or B) some sort of safe housing arrangement.

Same thing I saw when I volunteered at a shelter. Americans love the warm feeling they get when they give someone less successful than them a physical item, but the second you tell them the cash would be more useful they get indignant. It shatters their illusion that they, and they alone, were making some huge expenditure.

foggy,

You know sometimes it’s better to say “oops I was wrong”

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