I recently saw a post on social media, of people congratulating the “heroics” of a cop helping out a homeless woman, so I sought to find another article about it. There was to be a snow storm to hit Massachusetts, when the police department received a call at a Walmart about a woman in distress. After arriving and assessing the situation the cop on the call found out that the woman was in fact homeless and hadn’t eaten in days. The cop took it into his hands to buy food for her and help with paying and finding a hotel room, for her to ride out the storm in. The police department, took a photo of the exchange and later posted on Facebook to share what their own had done; and since then has been shared and viewed thousands of times.
For me, this brings up many concerns, but the main one is the cold. What are the ways in which homeless protect themselves from the cold?
I personally am so cold when the temperature drops below around 70 degrees, from there I have to have enough to cover up or have a heater right next to me. Here in this case the weather is dropping below 32 degrees, since there is snow, but is probably even lower. With the homeless typically outside, how do they stay warm? Sure, some might be able to go into shelters, but many shelters close at a specific time or only allow so many people. Or those who typically make enough money to buy some form of room for the night, what if they couldn’t make enough money because of the storm and then will be kicked out. So what can they do?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/massachusetts-cop-helps-homeless-woman-food-shelter-before-storm/