Nope. I don’t think we can. Here’s why:
Weather here is just as deadly, but here people falsely believe that it isn’t, so they’re more likely to get caught out in it. In places where the hazard is obvious, homeless people are more likely to take the required precautions - or simply not live there. They flock here, and that means more beds are available in the places where blizzards hit. It’s actually safer for them to be there.
I already provided data that shows most of the people dying in the midwest are the elderly, 80 and above. They have homes. They either venture out into the cold or have no money for heating fuel.
I’ve also previously provided data that shows how much of the U.S. homeless population lives in California. In 2013, we housed 22% of the nation’s homeless, but in Los Angeles City & Counties, 53,798 people or 76.0% of our homeless were “chronically unsheltered” (exhibit 1.9). That number far exceeds other places in the nation. Louisville, KY had 1,445 people living exposed on the street, and that was 4.4% of their total homeless population.
If you read the source data for HUD (available here as an Excel spreadsheet - “Estimates by State”), you’ll find that of the 610,042 homeless recorded for 2013, 136,826 lived in California. Of those, 45,554 were sheltered. 91,272 lived unsheltered. The total unsheltered for the entire country in 2013 was 215,344, so California had 42.4% of the unsheltered homeless living in the U.S. in 2013. With more homeless, we don’t have enough beds, so people are forced into the cold - that’s a real risk.
We just honestly have that many more people exposed to what is deadly weather. Where weather is a more obvious concern, people either provide more shelter for homeless or the homeless seek other climates.