In the Cold Without a Home

Despite the steep drop in tempuature, something that has remained a constant is the number of homeless people without a shelter of any sort. While the winter storm is raging, causing power outages and propety damage, many were left to fend for themselves outside, and this is with the context of Oregon not having the harshest of winters. Not only that, while the weather poses a problem on its own, this winter is unique in the sense that not only would people without homes have to deal with dropping tempuature and snow, but also the COVID-19 pandemic. The factor of the virus brings significantly more complications to housing people due to the risk of further spreading it. In the case of Kansas City city manager Brian Platt, he states in an interview with the New York Times that leaving the city's homeless population spent a night on the street, it would be a "death sentence" and that letting a shelter whose population was meant to cap out at 65 excced that was preferable to leaving it at the cap despite the increased risk of spreading COVID-19. Anton Washingon, a community organizer who was a voice in favor of opening temporary shelters for the winter season, is against this specific factor and instead "urged city leaders to find somewhere bigger". Although both view points attempt to tell a narrative showing concern for the homeless population, Washington's standpoint shows more experience with planning ahead given how in cases like these, shelters need to still be accomodating to populations in triple digits at least, since the homeless population in the state of Kansas was at around 2,400 as of January, 2019, according to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. Assuming half of those people are already sheltered, opening another one that is only meant to house 65 people, having it exceed capacity despite a global pandemic more shows irresponsibility for the planning of shelters in terms of raw numbers and the context of the world at large. Anton Washington's example is one to be followed by more local governments as it shows genuine concern for the homeless populaation while being considerate at the same time of the global pandemic still raging on in this country. If you would like to help with Anton Washington's efforts to aid the homeless population of Kansas City, there will be a link below to donate to his gofundme page. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/us/coronavirus-homeless-cold-weather.html https://www.usich.gov/homelessness-statistics/ks/ Donate: https://gofund.me/91b9ae3f