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Every time it gets this cold, I think about a night a few years ago when I realized how strong my privilege is. I was buying something off Kijiji, so I drove to an apartment building on the other side of the city and picked it up. When I got back to my car, it wouldn't start. 
I had AMA, but the wait time to get a boost was around three hours. It was probably -25 or so, and hadn't exactly dressed for an extended period outside. So I decided to wait in the buzzer area of the apartment building.
I stood there for about three hours. During that time, a couple dozen people came through into the building. Not one asked me why I was there. Most were friendly. No one called security. Probably a third of them asked me, unprompted, if I needed to get let in.
I was able to stay warm because of how I looked. My whole drive home, I couldn't stop thinking about that. About how people assumed I belonged. That I wasn't a threat. That I deserved respect by default, even though I was a perfect stranger.
But here's the thing. That evening, I was just a human being desperately trying to not freeze. The same way that hundreds of others in our city do. Except many of them don't look like me. And no one asks if they need to get let into an apartment building.
The existence of homelessness is a societal choice. In a climate such as ours, it is an indefensibly cruel one. If it's said that a society should be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members, what does it say about us that we let people sleep in this?
I don't know what the solution is here, but I know it's not voting for parties and people that try to balance their budgets on the backs of our most marginalized. I went to bed last night knowing I'd be warm and safe. I want that for everyone else.
