What is the best option to provide for people who are homeless in the cold?
It's going to be very cold over the next few days in my area and I'd like to buy something for the people who are homeless, particularly ones who won't be in a shelter.
For budgeting, there is one shelter in my area for adults and one for children/teenagers. I don't know how many people would not have shelter but in the past, I have planned for 40 people when providing food for people in a shelter.
My budget is about $200 USD; what would be the most useful? thermal blankets? hot food?
Edit: thanks to all who responded. I called the shelter and the most needed items are (1) sleeping bags (2) very warm gloves to prevent frostbite (3) boots
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You are a good human.
I have heard clean dry socks and shoes are a huge necessity since your extremities get cold the fastest, especially if it's expected to snow or rain.
+1 I bought new shoes and decided to give my old ones away on the street. Wasn't hard, met some nice and appreciative people. Just watch out for people that obviously aren't your size, they'll just resell
This isn't necessarily true. A lot of encampments develop social roles, there's often someone who can tend to wounds, someone who knows how to cook anything using a wide variety of heat sources, someone that keeps track of the individual needs of everyone else at the camp, someone who can cut hair, someone who collects stuff for distribution within the camp, etc.
In a lot of cases physical donations will end up at the camp and either be shared when possible or redistributed to a specific person that can use it.
There are of course unhoused people that don't make it to camps or who have left camps, and if they resell the boots, so what? You're still helping them.