CHICAGO — As temperatures in Midwestern cities plunged to levels colder than parts of Antarctica and officials warned people not to step outside even for a few minutes, Tony Neeley stood on a downtown Chicago street corner Tuesday, wearing wet sneakers and clutching a hand warmer packet in each of his bare hands. He had already been there for hours.

“I’m cold and I’m afraid,” Mr. Neeley said, adding that he was trying to raise enough money from the bundled commuters rushing past to pay for a $45 motel room on a night that weather forecasters warned would send the Midwest into a deep freeze unlike anything even this region has seen in years.

[Read the latest on the deep freeze.]

What about the prospect of going to one of the scores of shelters officials in Chicago — and in cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Detroit — had urged homeless people to seek warmth in during the stretch of dangerous and extreme cold?

“You don’t understand,” Mr. Neeley said. “A lot of us don’t go to the shelters because of bedbugs, we don’t go because people steal from you, we don’t go because you can’t even really sleep in the shelter. But my feet are cold, and these clothes are all I’ve got.”