Cold Can Kill

The effects of hypothermia are brutal: Nausea, Frost bite, and falling into a coma, which, if left untreated, will lead to death. People slowly die in the streets from the cold, sleeping in places like park benches and the crawl spaces of abandoned houses. Two heart breaking instances of this are when a Detroit man named Red was found frozen on a porch New Year’s Day. People described him as a kind man. Anastasia, preferred to be called "Your Majesty",passed away sleeping in front of a neighborhood coffee shop. These are just two deaths out of many; seven have died in California, and many more throughout the year.

• 600,000 Americans are homeless every night.

• Seven hundred homeless people die each year of hypothermia (National Coalition for the Homeless.

• 44% percent of the nation’s homeless are unsheltered. 

• While some of the homeless have fashioned shelters such as cardboard boxes or tents they do little to protect against hypo/hyperthermia or frostbite.

Our idea would stop this because we aim to install HotSpots in every park, places the city deemed appropriate, and most importantly, places the homeless themselves would like to see the technology. No one would have to suffer and die from the cold because the warm refuge they seek will be a short walk away.