Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Thoughts on a Cold Winter's Day

I have been attending a conference on training technology the past two days. For various reasons, this has meant that I have been down town Toronto between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning.

The city is still largely asleep at that time; at least, once you get off the subway system. There are cars, to be sure, but few pedestrians on the three blocks between the subway station and my destination. There are also a surprising number of homeless people sleeping on grates on the sidewalk.

Its odd how homelessness is invisible until you have to step gingerly to avoid stepping on some poor soul huddled under a blanket on a sidewalk. You can see the steam rising from the grates and the breath appearing in front of your face, and then it strikes you -- these people are sleeping outside in temperatures that fall to -16 degrees Celsius. (That's 3 degrees American.)

I wish I could say I had a solution, but I don't. All I have is a great sense of unease and a lot of questions without answers.

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