1 million dollars seems to be a rather large sum of money. It’s really, really not. Of all the things made apparent at this year’s Munk One Case Competition, it was that simple fact. Groups of five or six students worked over the course of twenty-four hours to solve the endemic of homelessness in Toronto with an allotted budget of just 1 million dollars (which, on the scale of public spending, comes to just about nothing). It’s not often that your forced to identify the problems that lead to a systemic and ever burgeoning problem like homelessness, even less often that you’re forced to solve it in less than 24 hours; but when you do it’s truly incredible to see the ideas that come forth—spurned on by coffee, delirium, and some deep sated belief that there is an answer to be found. Within the span of a day, the four groups we comprised came forward with solutions addressing the needs of the LQBTQ+ community, the youth, the chronically homeless, and all other communities amongst the dispossessed included.

‘Inspired’ seems to be a kind of banal platitude these days, often thrown on pick-me-up posters or cheesy disney-line cruise pamphlets in a last ditch effort to hold your attention just a little bit longer; but when watching my fellow peers articulate solution after solution all other adjectives fall short in properly encapsulating the impression left myself and all others present. Watching each presentation, it was apparent to those at hand that these were a group of individuals set on making the future a better one, even if by just a bit. To work with professionals in their respective field, to dive into the complicated issue of homelessness — drowning amongst a deluge of brutal realities and depressing statistics, to develop solutions not just with the goal of winning a competition but of taking action beyond the walls of the Munk School, making a real difference: it was a joy.