As you all know, the temperatures this past week were 90+ degrees Fahrenheit. In downtown Charlotte, homeless people living in the open under tents have been experiencing extreme heat exposure as a result of the high temperatures. While delivering ice in coolers at one of the homeless clusters downtown, we experienced brief aggressive behavior from a couple of people, understandably so. Our intention was to drop off ice at a central location within the cluster, and to encourage equal distribution to all from that point. However, a couple of people forced their way and took the majority of the ice for their personal use.
The situation highlighted an operational challenge in delivering ice that we need your help to solve. We need you to volunteer your intellect and experience, and share some ideas to help solve this problem. Here is the challenge:
We need a safe, cost-effective, and less time-consuming way to distribute ice to around 100 homeless people who need it. There are around 50-60 tents. We have been told that only 40% have a personal ice cooler. Everyone is close to their tents after 8 PM or before 10 AM. There is an adhoc central point near the tents, where volunteers leave snacks/food for the homeless, however there is no formal distribution network here. We typically leave ice there. There is another place, 2 blocks from this tent cluster, where most of the homeless people gather for lunch and dinner that is somewhat organized. However, at this location, the homeless do not bring their personal ice coolers. The ice is a temporary need through the end of this summer only.
One idea that we came up with is to provide easy to carry lunch boxes for the homeless. Ice can be brought in at the location where lunch and dinner are distributed (2 blocks from the cluster). Once a daily routine sets in, most people will start remembering to bring their lunch boxes. We can create a stream of volunteers who can drop ice at that location. Donations to our GoFundMe page can sponsor lunch boxes (and we can save money by asking people to donate used lunch boxes that are in good condition).
Please share any other ideas and solutions you have to help refine our idea. Your time and intellect investment itself is a great service.
You can post your ideas on the GFM page linked below:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/hot-meal-and-care-packets-for-charlotte-homeless
