Helping Out our Homeless Bros, aka "HoBros", Using Advanced Materials Technology!

This man is not simply cosplaying a baked potato, as we are all wont to do from time to time. Well, he might be, but that isn't what this article is about. Like many of you, when I first started to make good money at this, my first thought was "I want other people to benefit from this too."

Of course I worked for that money, but as I've written for years with no recompense whatsoever it felt like free money raining from the sky. I didn't feel deserving of it and still don't, but so long as it keeps coming I can splash some of it around to people who need help more than I do.

So, I ordered some mylar bivy sacks and Sawyer Mini water filters. I deliberated over whether to tell anybody about it. Is it really charity if you tell people? But then, who cares why people help so long as they get off their asses and do it?

Besides which, plenty want to help but don't know how to do it in a way that won't be misused. What can you give a homeless person that they won't simply sell? What is simultaneously useful enough to them that they will keep it but cheap enough that it's no big loss if they don't?

Mylar is the most efficient thermal insulator known to man. Resembling thinner, more flexible aluminum foil, it reflects infrared radiation specifically. That is to say, heat. So if you wrap yourself up in this, it will trap the waste heat your body normally radiates out into the environment, using it to warm you. To call it "space age" is no exaggeration. Ever seen that crinkly metallic foil lookin' stuff around the base of the Apollo lunar lander?

Yup, mylar. In that case used to insulate fuel tanks and electronics. So, why a bivy sack? What even is a bivy sack? It's like a sleeping bag, but made out of mylar and typically intended to be a liner for a proper sleeping bag of the sort you've used in the past. However by itself it does a disproportionately good job of keeping you warm for its mass. These can be had for as little as $6 online, making them a no-worry giveaway that will do a lot of good for not a lot of money.

It's not all sunshine and lollipops. It gets sweaty in there. You can buy a breathable one that lets air escape but not heat. That will increase the cost per bag by a factor of ten however. The other thing is it takes about 30 minutes to warm up as much as it's going to.

If you let the warm air escape, like getting out to pee or something, you have to wait for another thirty minutes to get warm again. But these are small prices to pay to keep from losing your fingers and toes to frostbite during a nasty winter. Not much use currently as it's Summer and sweltering out, but it will be cold again soon enough.

So shelter is covered. What about clean drinking water? Many hobros live out in the woods. Their water comes from creeks and streams. That's a good way to get sick! Luckily, materials technology has furnished us with a cheap, lightweight and compact solution.

This is the Sawyer Mini. I fucking love this thing. It differs from other filters I've seen in that it doesn't require replaceable filter cartridges. Like the Lifestraw, it's backwashable, meaning to clean it out you just send water through in the other direction. Unlike the Lifestraw, you can do this with it:

Now hobros can take water with them instead of having to find a stream every time they're thirsty, vastly less of a life-interrupting hassle for somebody busy figuring out how they're going to eat today.

It does eventually wear out after 100,000 gallons, but that's a considerable lifespan and spares someone with no disposable income the problem of how to get new filter cartridges. But how does it work?

Sawyer filters utilize hollow fiber membrane technology, originally developed for filtering blood in kidney dialysis machines. To stand in for your liver, such a machine must be able to remove bacteria and other bloodborn contaminants extremely thoroughly. The only things this filter won't remove are viruses and heavy metals, though Sawyer has a 2.0 model on the way which will be capable of that.

None of this obligates you to spend your money this way. I am not a fan of guilt as a motivating mechanism, it's pathological. I want to reach people whose natural reaction when their life is good is "how can other people have this too?" It is the feeling of eating something delicious and wanting to share it, which increases your own enjoyment rather than taking away.

A mylar bag and a water filter won't make a huge difference, but it's something. Doing something for somebody used to people doing nothing to help means everything. This is affordable, easy, and obviates most of the concerns associated with helping the needy.

They can't sell it for much and get more immediate use out of it improving their own comfort and safety, and so are unlikely to sell it for drugs or booze. It doesn't cost you much, so you can justify the expense and helping out a little bit won't break the bank.

So if you've been looking for something to tote around in the car that is of immediate use to a homeless person, I hope these ideas are helpful. Anybody who makes most of their money here off minnow votes knows from direct experience that a lot of little helping hands can do the same work as one big one.