# How do homeless people live in very cold areas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 21, 2009, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591 "2009-10-21T10:50:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/41 "2009-10-21T19:15:14Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Oh, no, not mad at you! We were just there in March and we couldn’t believe they let that kind of crap fly in such a “clean”, sanitized city. Got it. 🙂 Actually, we didn’t see any overtly hookery behavior when we were there. There were a LOT of homeless people on the strip, though. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/42 "2009-10-21T19:30:38Z")
Oh, you don’t see the hookers - they keep them in cages or something. You see the Mexican people flicking porno cards at you. I wonder what small children think of them? Gotta catch 'em all? ---
**Author:** ![xnylder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbce88/32.png) [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/43 "2009-10-21T19:33:29Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I grew up in southern Canada, i.e. 18 miles north of the United States. Every winter we would routinely have days where the temperature hit -30° C, and sometimes -40°. > > Where would homeless go? They can’t go south for the winter, because of the border. To get to the balmy west coast, they’d have to travel over a thousand miles, over several mountain ranges. Some of them travel to the coast and back again regularly. \*[Exiles in Lotusland](http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=53081)\*is a documentary about a couple of Montreal-area street kids who live part of the year in British Columbia. The film shows a small community’s worth of young Quebecers who’ve gone to Vancouver for the weather and (in their opinion) the easily accessible social programs. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/44 "2009-10-21T19:50:30Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > thought i’ve found that there is a huge amount of young single homeless that want to be that way because ‘i’m my own boss’ attitude. > [@Munch](#): > > You won’t find any numbers to support your assumption, if by “huge” you’re referring to a percentage of the total homeless population. > [@johnpost](#): > > when i worked aiding the homeless, for young single homeless it was more common than any other reason. no one was going to dictate what they did in their life even if it resulted in being homeless and all that went with it. > [@Munch](#): > > That’s also a reason that surfaces extremely frequently amongst the mentally ill - which doesn’t lend itself very well to the “want to be that way” portion of your argument, and severely cuts down the “huge amount” as well. while i’m not a psychologist, you did get to recognize mental illness fairly easily with its multiple symptoms. sure some young single homeless were mentally ill though i’m speaking about the normal acting ones. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/45 "2009-10-21T19:53:18Z")
Homeless people are pretty mobile, as long as they don’t have to cross borders. I went to college in Santa Cruz, California, which has - or at least had when I lived there - a homelessness problem way out of proportion to its size (~60,000 residents). It was pretty much directly a result of city policy, which was unusually accepting of having people sitting around on the sidewalks. Down on their luck people know that if you can get to Santa Cruz, you’ll be okay, and the result is that a LOT of homeless people (some of whom do have cars, you know) have ended up there. They sleep and have bonfires on the beach and the police don’t bug them. When the city council _considered_ making it legal to sleep on the street (I don’t think they went through with it, this was happening right around the time I graduated and I moved away), homeless people started making their way to Santa Cruz from all around the country. I have a lot of sympathy for the homeless in general, but I found the city council’s inability to deal with the problem endlessly frustrating, especially because their preferred activities were more along the lines of passing resolutions that they disapproved of the Chinese takeover of Tibet, making Santa Cruz a nuclear-free zone, making _hate_ illegal, and turning itself into a medical marijuana dealer. (I am not making any of these up.) WTF. Yeah, all of these things are of such much higher priority than the hundreds of homeless people on the streets. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/46 "2009-10-21T20:10:43Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > while i’m not a psychologist, you did get to recognize mental illness fairly easily with its multiple symptoms. sure some young single homeless were mentally ill though i’m speaking about the normal acting ones. Oh - the “normal acting ones”. Glad you clarified - I was afraid we were losing our clinical objectivism here. :rolleyes: [Indianapolis’ 2009 Homeless Count](http://chipindy.org/pdf/CHIP_2009_Homeless_Count.pdf) (warning: pdf): Total: 1454 Severely mentally ill: 306 (21%) As for demographics, 25% of the homeless are under the age of 18. Due to the nature of the count, I’m not willing to concede that many of those were unaccompanied. Only 7% of the entire population was between the age of 18-30. The number of singles between 18-30 isn’t reported. Even if we assume that zero of those young people don’t have children or a spouse, that’s 102 people, 80 after we factor out the severely mentally ill (I’ll point out the “severely” portion of that as well). Also in my assumption is the fact that I’m lumping every single other debilitating status into that SMI designation, which is extremely unlikely. Severe alcoholism or a drug addiction may not be very sympathy-inducing, and some can certainly argue that it’s a choice that person has made, but it stretches the definition of being both “motivated and able” as well as “wanting to be that way”. Either way, 5.5% of the homeless population is between the age of 18-30 and are not severely mentally ill. If you want to define that as “a huge amount”, I’ll need to see what superlative you use for 40%. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/47 "2009-10-21T20:45:33Z")
In Montreal, the Metro system is closed and quite warm (it is not heated but the rubber tire trains create enough waste heat to keep it so. It is part of an elaborate “underground city”. During cold weather, I see people sleeping (even in the daytime) all over the tunnels and Metro stops. I do not know whether any effort is made to clear them out during the night. There is also the train station (part of the underground city actually) and I assume that stays open all night. In NY, you could take the A train from the top of Manhattan to the farthest corner of Far Rockaway. The trip takes 2 hours and you could just take it back without paying another fare. Kind of coring and repititive, but it keeps you warm and it runs all night. For variety you coud transfer to other lines too. Just make sure you get off at a stop that permits going the other way (most of them do). ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/48 "2009-10-21T21:20:44Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > thought i’ve found that there is a huge amount of young single homeless that want to be that way because ‘i’m my own boss’ attitude. > [@Munch](#): > > You won’t find any numbers to support your assumption, if by “huge” you’re referring to a percentage of the total homeless population. > [@johnpost](#): > > when i worked aiding the homeless, for young single homeless it was more common than any other reason. no one was going to dictate what they did in their life even if it resulted in being homeless and all that went with it. > [@Munch](#): > > That’s also a reason that surfaces extremely frequently amongst the mentally ill - which doesn’t lend itself very well to the “want to be that way” portion of your argument, and severely cuts down the “huge amount” as well. > [@johnpost](#): > > while i’m not a psychologist, you did get to recognize mental illness fairly easily with its multiple symptoms. sure some young single homeless were mentally ill though i’m speaking about the normal acting ones. > [@Munch](#): > > Oh - the “normal acting ones”. Glad you clarified - I was afraid we were losing our clinical objectivism here. :rolleyes: > > [Indianapolis’ 2009 Homeless Count](http://chipindy.org/pdf/CHIP_2009_Homeless_Count.pdf) (warning: pdf): > Total: 1454 > Severely mentally ill: 306 (21%) > > As for demographics, 25% of the homeless are under the age of 18. Due to the nature of the count, I’m not willing to concede that many of those were unaccompanied. Only 7% of the entire population was between the age of 18-30. The number of singles between 18-30 isn’t reported. Even if we assume that zero of those young people don’t have children or a spouse, that’s 102 people, 80 after we factor out the severely mentally ill (I’ll point out the “severely” portion of that as well). > > Also in my assumption is the fact that I’m lumping every single other debilitating status into that SMI designation, which is extremely unlikely. Severe alcoholism or a drug addiction may not be very sympathy-inducing, and some can certainly argue that it’s a choice that person has made, but it stretches the definition of being both “motivated and able” as well as “wanting to be that way”. Either way, 5.5% of the homeless population is between the age of 18-30 and are not severely mentally ill. If you want to define that as “a huge amount”, I’ll need to see what superlative you use for 40%. i made a statement limited to young single homeless and you want to apply it to the total homeless population. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/49 "2009-10-21T22:09:17Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > i made a statement limited to young single homeless and you want to apply it to the total homeless population. That does not explain the phrase “there is a huge amount of young single homeless that want to be that way”. That population is not “huge”, as I’ve illustrated. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/50 "2009-10-21T22:55:15Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > thought i’ve found that there is a huge amount of young single homeless that want to be that way because ‘i’m my own boss’ attitude. > [@johnpost](#): > > when i worked aiding the homeless, for young single homeless it was more common than any other reason. no one was going to dictate what they did in their life even if it resulted in being homeless and all that went with it. > [@Munch](#): > > That does not explain the phrase “there is a huge amount of young single homeless that want to be that way”. That population is not “huge”, as I’ve illustrated. OK bad composition on my part in the first statement. i intended it to be ‘… of the young …’ in the second the phrasing is clearer that my statement is limited to that subgroup. you illustrated the amount of ‘young not severely mentally ill’ homeless in relation to the total homeless population. ---
**Author:** ![palacheck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a88e57/32.png) [@palacheck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palacheck)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/51 "2009-10-21T23:02:11Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Oh, no, not mad at you! We were just there in March and we couldn’t believe they let that kind of crap fly in such a “clean”, sanitized city. You should have seen Vegas in the 60s. They flicked the actual hookers at you. Vegas has made huge strides at cleaning the seedier parts up, hence why it’s called Disneyland. I for one preferred it when it was actually meant for adults only. It really sucks having to go to different parts of a city for each vice. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/52 "2009-10-21T23:33:18Z")
> [@palacheck](#): > > You should have seen Vegas in the 60s. They flicked the actual hookers at you. > > Vegas has made huge strides at cleaning the seedier parts up, hence why it’s called Disneyland. I for one preferred it when it was actually meant for adults only. It really sucks having to go to different parts of a city for each vice. I heard that the whole “family friendly” thing is kind of going away. I hope so. ---
**Author:** ![SeaDragonTattoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/53 "2009-10-22T02:28:42Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > I heard that the whole “family friendly” thing is kind of going away. I hope so. Really? I might actually go back again in a few years if that’s the case. Last time I went it was as exciting as a shopping mall. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/54 "2009-10-22T17:57:04Z")
> [@EmAnJ](#): > > How are they going to get anywhere else? They don’t have money, and would YOU pick up a dirty, smelly hitch hiker? How would I know he is smelly?..and yes,most likely I would ,specially if it is in the middle of winter.I don’t pick up every hitcher I see but damn near.Rethinking that tho..the last three i picked up were all drunk and asked for money.Most any of em got was a smoke. One guy got in and looked at my radio station tuned to 107.3 and asked “Is that the right time?” I said “Yep,its 10:73” He just said “Ok”. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591/55 "2009-10-22T19:56:59Z")
> [@pan1](#): > > How do homeless deal with elements: > > Layered Clothes > > Avoid the wind. Use Alleys, bridges, etc. > > Finding the warmer places in cities - like sidewalk vents that give off heat. Subway tunnels. … Yep. When I lived in Manhattan, the street people tended to have piles of clothing / blankets, and they searched out protected areas (behind stairwells, under scaffolding, etc.). Some spent all day at “their” spots - there was one corner near the UN where this one older fellow was only barely recognizable as a human-length pile of blankets with long gray curly hair sticking out of one end - he spent all day there. I remember the day we had a project lunch, and the directions to the restaurant were “turn left at the bum”. Other spots were occupied just at night. I once donated a spare winter jacket by dint of leaving it near one such spot; it was gone a few hours later. Hopefully someone benefitted from it. In the DC area, there are some Metro station entrances that are closed down after hours. When I worked downtown, one of the entrances to Farragut West was one such. If you tried to go down there to go home after working late, you were treated to the sight and aroma of a number of street people huddling in the sheltered area. You had to go back up the stopped escalator, and go to another entrance about a block away, to get to the train. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-homeless-people-live-in-very-cold-areas/514591.md?page=2)