Homeless advocates remember deceased
Speeches made at virtual ceremony include call to action for viable solutions
SANTA CRUZ >> George Michael Szudy consulted the Homeless Persons Health Project in the year before he died, accessing muchneeded income, food stamps, medical insurance and mental health care.
“All the basic things that everybody deserves that are so hard for some of us right now,” his sister Jeannie Szudy commented during the 22nd Annual Homeless Memorial, hosted by Homeless Persons Health Project, Housing Matters and other community partners in a virtual fashion this year.
George Szudy was even empowered to contact his family after years of estrangement and let them know he was alive, that he was working to find housing. He was having a good year, one final good year she credited to the advocates at the county clinic, before his bipolar condition sent him spiraling into mania again.
“He thought he didn’t need any help and he lost that connection with Homeless Persons Health Project in the last months of his life,” Jeannie said.
George Szudy collapsed on the street behind the library in downtown Santa Cruz in May. A good Samaritan called 911 and he was taken to Dominican Hospital after what his sibling imagines was many days of being alone, lying on the sidewalk.
“The staff bent the rules for us,” she said. “We were able to hold his hand and we saw his poor, beat up body. We were able to say the things that maybe could have been said sooner.”
George Szudy died while connected to a morphine drip, his family members surrounding him. He was 63 years old. He was likable — even to landlords who were forced to kick him out and cops that had arrested him, his sister had been told. He loved science and rock ‘n’ roll. Most of all, he loved nature — especially camping.
“It’s ironic that he ended his life camping on the streets of Santa Cruz,” Jeannie said.
George Szudy was just one of 77 unhoused individuals in Santa Cruz County who died this year — the highest number Homeless Persons Health Project has recorded since it started tracking homeless deaths in 2003, according to a press release. His name, along with the rest of the unhoused and 43 previously unhoused that died, were read aloud and displayed at the Salvation Army and Veterans Hall in Watsonville as well as the Veterans Hall in Santa Cruz.
Annus horribilis
Housing Matters Executive Director Phil Kramer started his introduction to the memorial with just Latin words — annus horribilis — meaning a year of disaster, a bad year. The coronavirus changed all of society and defined the word “loss” in many ways. For Kramer’s organization, it was the
loss of former board president Claudia Brown. But while most of the county’s population was processing the pandemic indoors, the homeless demographic was forced to make do outdoors. Of the 77 that died, just eight were sheltered — leaving the rest to die in the cold without adequate resources.
Thousands in California have died of COVID-19, but not a single one of those thousands was a homeless person in Santa Cruz County. Community partners across the region funneled state and FEMA funding into putting the homeless up in shelters or motels and providing more tents, sleeping bags, pads and tarps than any previous year. Instead, many recently and previously unhoused individuals died of cardiac disease or failure and of the damage of substance abuse. Their lifespan was cut short by more than 20 years than the average housed resident largely because of the unadulterated trauma that comes with years of being homeless.
“Lugging your belongings with you everywhere you go… being chased from campsites by the authorities or the community, the behavioral health stigma, substance abuse, feelings of helplessness, sleeping on sidewalks, living in the rain and cold and little to no structure consistency in life,” Homeless Persons Health Project Administrative Aide David Davis listed off. “Even with the increase in shelter capacity in the motels, it still leaves 1,200 people sleeping on the streets in parks (and) along the levees in Santa Cruz and Watsonville.”
And in Santa Cruz, as Davis spoke, the unhoused living at San Lorenzo Park and nearby Benchlands were preparing to move again, this time by mandate of a City of Santa Cruz order. The city cited “nuisance conditions” as the reason it was shutting down an encampment opened and managed through jurisdiction resources since April. The city has not outlined a next step for the approximately 150 living in a socially distanced pattern; they have three weeks to figure it out themselves.
“Our city, state and federal government needs to show courage for this community scorned and allow people to shelter and eventually be housed, whether it’s available space (or) to make space for them,” Davis said. “We cannot do it alone… we have our own ongoing pandemic of homelessness.”
Hospice of Santa Cruz County is offering shortterm grief counseling to community members experiencing loss. Individuals who are seeking help can visit hospicesantacruz.org for more information.