The Bay Area winters are comparatively mild, and if you're going to die of exposure it's most likely to be elsewhere. I don't dispute that.
But I don't think we can say that it is very difficult to freeze here, nor that all one needs is a coat and blanket for protection. It implies the absurdity that the people must have tried very hard to die that way, trivializes the difficulty of obtaining adequate clothing, ignores concerns such as injury/illness/addiction/age which increase risk of freezing, etc.
But I don't think we can say that it is very difficult to freeze here, nor that all one needs is a coat and blanket for protection. It implies the absurdity that the people must have tried very hard to die that way, trivializes the difficulty of obtaining adequate clothing, ignores concerns such as injury/illness/addiction/age which increase risk of freezing, etc.
Incidentally, the 2010 report on homeless deaths in NYC (http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/pdf/govpub/57985th_annual_re...) says that 6 died from exposure to cold. We had a comparable number this year in the Bay Area (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/18/3081571/bay-area...). I don't bring this up to start a contest or anything -- you can't draw very many conclusions from these numbers alone -- only to suggest that the risk should not be trivialized.