Actually we're talking quite a bit colder in the winter. The neighbor in the TV story described them sleeping in their van at "thirty below zero" which is a stretch, but thirty below freezing is not. We get that here in Carolina. I'm not that far away from them.
Kentucky isn't exactly "deep south". Where they are is basically east of Cincinnati.
So single digit temps sometimes. Maybe they ran out of wood? ~shrug~
This would be prime example, of "why do you know better then them." Why does it matter that they were sleeping in their van exactly? Is it a crime to sleep in your van?
I know people live in motorhomes all year long up here - my husband repairs their shit - and it /does/ get to 50 below zero. Is that a crime too?
Nobody said it's a "crime". It's the weather. You can acknowledge the weather and its effects, and provide for your family -- or you can say "fuck it" and go beg on Facebook with some fantasy comic book about "homeschooling".
Burning wood can be a great help when it's single digits, or anywhere below freezing. That's what I do. But I have something they don't -- walls. And I seal off places where that heat might escape. There's no WAY I would plop out ten children and force them to live without walls because I couldn't be bothered to take my responsibility to work for their survival. No way.
So they begged for a wood stove -- even though they have no walls -- and when that failed they put twelve people in a van. And then they started a cooking fore with gasoline (duh) and got burned. No water-- they troll neighbors for that... no sewage -- kids living in their own shit... and a head of household who apparently makes his only living by waving a gun at his neighbors. I'd say there's a crime in there somewhere.