Now that we have all officially become snow mutants taking on the polar vortex, I figured it was my time to talk about snow days and homelessness. Now I am sure you are like, “LAURIE, I AM DONE WITH SNOW, STOP TALKING ABOUT IT,” and I do love snow, I can’t lie, but the snow is not what I am trying to get at in this blog. This blog will discuss this month’s non-profit challenge focused on homelessness in partner with COTS (Coalition on Temporary Shelter). At the beginning of our time with COTS we did a poverty simulation, which turned out to be one of the most enriching experiences of my life, and transformed how I saw homelessness in the city.

As a child growing up in Northern Michigan, snow days were my favorite thing about winter. We all wished that the next day we would wake up to the television showing our school name at the bottom of the screen with a giant CANCELLED next to it. Now, think about a snow day in the perspective of a single mother trying to make ends meet. It gives you a whole new view on how one snowstorm can transform your world.

Think: You are a single mother and have to work every day. As your child goes to school you go to work. You turn off the heat and lights while you are gone to save money. Your child eats lunch at school on the free and reduced lunch program offered by the nice heated school. You make $8.75 an hour and have been saving to pay for rent, food and utilities for the month.

THEN BOOM THE POLAR VORTEX HITS, and your child now has three snow days in a row. You cannot leave your child at home while you go to work, and you have no family to support you. So you invest in child care for those three days, but wait that won’t work because the bus system is also down due to the cold. So you have to call off of work for those three days. Your boss is nice and allows you to stay home, but now you have to pay for heat, lights and lunch for those three days. What now? You just lost at least $220 because three days off of work due one storm. That one storm put you back $220 on your rent, which made you miss the payment date. Your landlord is a jerk and evicts you due to lack of payment. Where do you go? What do you do?

Now of course I am not saying that this will happen to you, and I’m not telling you to hate snow. I am just showing you that despite what many people think, many of us are just a giant snow storm (or car accident, poor investment, relationship…. the list goes on) away from being homeless. The more we realize this, the more understanding this world will be.