Homeless deaths: 20 year record
SANTA CRUZ >> Just days before local agencies collaborate to host the 22nd annual Homeless Memorial Service, County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency’s Homeless Persons Health Project released staggering statistics about deaths among the housed and unhoused in the last year.
HPHP said that the purpose of preparing and distributing the report is three-fold: to honor, to illustrate and to reflect. Prior to the memorial, the agency was seeking to honor those who died while homeless in the community in the last year, strive to document and increase awareness of the severe impact of homelessness on the lives of people in the community and reflect upon the commitment to the work left to be done to prevent the unjust deaths.
The Homeless Action Partnership, consisting of the County of Santa Cruz, the City of Watsonville, Housing Matters, Wings Homeless Advocacy and the Salvation Army, said in a statement introducing this year’s memorial that there was a 33% increase in deaths of the unhoused across the county in comparison to the previous year.
At the memorial, being held virtually this Friday in conjunction with National Homeless Persons Memorial Day, the names of the more than 70 who have died in the last year will be read aloud; 41 more names of those who were once homeless and died this year will also be spoken. HPHP encourages attendees to add to its list the names of anyone who may have been overlooked. Shelter residents at the Santa Cruz and Watsonville Veteran Memorial Halls will be able to watch the ceremony as its cast in addition to sharing a story of remembrance or a poem.
Cold, hard facts
Between Dec. 20, 2019 and Nov. 6, 2020, 1,884 of 270,466 housed individuals — 0.7% of the population or 1 in every 144 housed individual — died in Santa Cruz County. During that same period, 77 of 2,109 homeless individuals — 3.7% or 1 in every 27 unhoused individuals — died. That’s approximately 5.4 times the rate of the rest of the county population, HPHP pointed out.
Of the 77 that died, 14 men and one woman 40 years old and under lost their lives, a rate of 19.4% of that population. Just 65 men and 23 women of the 1,850 housed individuals that died in the county since last December were 40 and under — 4.8% of that population. Homeless people under 40 years old and under died at four times the rate of those who were housed, the data shows.
A demographic breakdown shows that the majority of the unhoused that died were between the ages of 41 and 70 — 58 of the 77 deceased fell between the age span. The average lifespan of a housed individual in Santa Cruz County is ap
proximately 75; the average lifespan of an unhoused person is approximately 52.
In terms of race, more than 70% of the unhoused individuals who died were white. The most common locations at the time of death were either outside or at a hospital, the data shows.
Overwhelmingly, the unhoused individuals died in Santa Cruz. Data was not yet available for 15 of the deceased; nine died out of county.
The cause of death varied when it came to the deceased homeless, but nearly half have an unknown or pending cause of death. The second leading category was cardiac disease or cardiac failure, with substance use-related deaths accounting for 13% of the deaths.
Generally, the number of homeless deaths have not
decreased from the previous year in four years. The number of homeless deaths have been the highest recorded in the county since tracking began in 2000.
“While the average age of deceased persons remained steady for the past 10 years, the number of homeless deaths has been increasing,” HPHP wrote.
Information gathering
HPHP maintains a log of deaths throughout the year, including information on confirmed deaths of clients as well as confirmed reports of deaths received from other county clinics, homeless service organizations, medical providers and other community partners, according to the document. Though the countyaffiliated institution does its best to keep the data up, representatives said in the
report released Monday afternoon that the data most likely under represents the number of homeless deaths in the county.
“Housing status at the time of death is neither well documented nor easily determined. Housing status in general, is a social determinant of health that our healthcare system can improve upon in identifying to initiate interventions to address homelessness during health care visits,” HPHP included in its passage on data collection. “Information on likely factors leading to death is imprecise, and the cause can be unknown at the time of death.”
Those interested in attending the memorial, which is scheduled to run approximately an hour and a half, can register at https://bit.ly/2IxVKba.