Street Almanac: Issue 5
The Street Almanac normally interviews those living on the streets for hacks to help others in similar positions. Some of the ideas shared could be potentially harmful or lead to legal consequences. In this issue, we asked people experiencing homelessness to share some tips or hacks that would be helpful to get through the frigid winter months.
“First and foremost, layers are everything. The more layers you have, the more you can control your body temperatures. If you get to sweating, you’re screwed, because you could get frostbite. You have to be able to strip down as it gets warmer and layer back as it gets colder. You have to be able to do this with your tent with tarps and blankets. You can throw it on top and your tent can withstand 40 degree weather. Hand sanitizer burns clean and hot. Put a little bit of hand sanitizer in a bottle cap, light it, let it burn for two minutes, it will warm your tent right up. Put a metal grate under your fire and it will burn hotter, but it will also use more fuel. Site location is everything, no matter what time of the year. You have to look at where you‘re going to set your camp up. You need a flat spot so water doesn’t roll back to you. If you pick a spot that’s diverted out, a leak can turn into a lake. When you get thrown out on your ass, you don’t know any of this. You have to either watch other people do it or people will take you by the hand and show you. I learned the hand sanitizer tactic on a pipe-fitting job. So it’s not necessarily tactics I learned when I was homeless. It’s things I learned from other areas of my life that I could apply there.”
“I was sleeping in my car, it got down to 17 degrees in December. I put a propane stove in there and I put a little chimney out the window. The police said I was cooking meth and the whole police department showed up. They said I couldn’t do that. They had their guns out and everything. I was sound asleep, I woke up and they had their guns pointed at me. It’s okay to sleep in your car but it’s not okay to have a propane heater that looks like a meth lab.”
“We would find abandoned houses and go in and insulate them as much as we could with blankets and stuff. I know some people that figured out a way to use rubbing alcohol and make smokeless fires inside to keep warm. We were basically forced to commit crimes because it's a trespassing charge to be caught in these places. And a lot of the shelters won't accept you if you don't have an ID or if you can’t pass a drug test. And then COVID hit and they weren't accepting people. So during that time, it was like, there was no choice. And the cops would come and break your tents down. They took random trips to come tear up everybody's stuff. So it was like you had no other choice.”
“I think it was like 9 degrees outside… Northwood’s shelter checkout was 7 a.m. and the next warm place didn’t open up till 9 a.m. 45 minutes into that time period my hands were frozen. A car near the church was sitting there running and I held my hands near the exhaust to keep my hands warm. I tried to warm my whole body. I needed heat. I cuffed my hands under the exhaust and moved the heat to other parts of my body. I sat there for 45 minutes doing that.”
“You’re talking to an old soldier. I dug a pit one time and slept in it. I slept in a dumpster before. Honestly, you can dig a hole inside a hill and crawl in it. It’s warmer in there. I even slept in somebody’s garage once.”
“Nothing’s open. You just sit around, get cold, and wait for something to open. Or go to sleep. Or go to the library. I mean, there’s just not enough room, either, in the shelters for the amount of people. I’m not talking about the winter freeze. But the regular year-round shelters. There’s just not enough room.”