Bitter cold

It is very, very cold here in Edmonton. Overnight lows will be below -50 Celcius.

If you have never experienced cold like this, you will be very, very cold regardless of what you are wearing in a short period of time. That cold stays with you once you are back inside. 

Now, consider the fact that there are people in this city living outside in this in tents. The sometimes will have two tents and some tarps over them which creates an insulating layer to trap body heat but we are talking about a cold so deep that best you are going to get in this situation is maybe -15 or -20 in the tent. Then next step is wearing as many clothes as you can get and wrapping in a sleeping bag, probably with your head inside the bag. 

And you are still going to be cold. 

So spare a thought for them.

I am doing some research on the problem of homelessness in Canada. It seems like the public money being spent on this issue is under 5% of what would be needed. It seems like we don't really want to fix this. 

Maybe one day we'll figure it out and spend more money on this and less on the military (which we don't spend that much on in the first place). 

The Canadian defense budget is about 26.5 billion. I estimate that to completely solve Canadian homelessness in 10 years, you would need about that much per year. This would pay to house everyone that would be homeless in that period in secure housing with appropriate care, security, and food. 

 The question is "how much of that military budget can we transfer over to the homelessness problem"? The military probably thinks this number is $0. Or close to it. But what if their primary mission was to solve this problem?