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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

> also cold in many places in the US ... so people die all the time there too.

The cold climate locations in the US does not have homeless during the winter, because they move away to warmer climates.

There's no warmer climate to be in for Finland.

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I used to see homeless sleeping in the doorway/building entrances in DC in the evenings while it was snowing outside. It terrified me. They had a few blankets and would huddle up.

I was in Chicago on a pretty very cold night one time (it was sitting around 0F that evening) and it was horrifying to see how many homeless people were still outside despite that cold.

Helsinki winter isn’t much colder than DC or New York, both of which have large year-round homeless populations.

This got me curious, so I compared [0]. To summarize, Helsinki's high tracks NYC's low. Helsinki is 6 -- 8 C (10 -- 14 F) colder than NYC in January -- February.

[0] https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/91632~23912/Comparison-of...

I agree, it is definitely colder in Helsinki. But heavy snowfall and -12C (the NYC mean minimum coldest day temperature in January) is still extremely uncomfortable to sleep rough in. Yet many homeless people stay in New York year round.

So the difference is really that Finland is further along the path of civilisation?

Hi just chiming in from lovely Boston Massachusetts to let you know you're wrong. Source: my own two eyes.

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