Sacramento’s 10th Annual Homeless Memorial will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday to remember the nearly 200 people who have died in the county so far this year while experiencing homelessness.
It will take place outside Sacramento City Hall at 915 I Street.
Those in attendance will read the names of dozens of “unhoused neighbors,” as homeless advocate Bob Erlenbush refers to them — because the vast majority are from the local area.
Erlenbusch, who heads the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, said he hopes people will “remember that these are moms and dads, and somebody’s brother or sister … somebody you might have gone to high school with. And so often, the community forgets that.”
Coroner reports show 195 unhoused residents had died in Sacramento County through the middle of November, Erlenbusch said. He expects the total for this year will rise well above 200.
That would mark the third year in a row unhoused deaths neared or surpassed 200 in the county. It would be nearly triple the annual homeless death total from 2017. Erlenbush compiles annual homeless death reports tallying the number of people who die in the county along with causes of death and demographic information.
In 2022, his report showed 203 unhoused residents died. Drug overdoses accounted for nearly half the deaths, or 95 total, with methamphetamine a factor in the majority of those deaths.
Another 47 were categorized as “violent deaths,” resulting from blunt force head injuries, gunshots, stabbings or hangings. Meanwhile, cardiovascular disease killed 27 unhoused residents.
The reports are posted on the regional coalition’s website.
Erlenbusch said the harsh conditions on the streets contribute to shorter lives. The average age of unhoused men who died in 2022 was 51, while for unhoused women the average age was 47.
“The sad thing is so many of these deaths are preventable if people had a safe place to be,” Erlenbusch added.
He said the increase in deaths can be attributed to Sacramento County’s soaring homeless population.
It reached a record 9,300 people in 2022, up 67% from three years earlier, according to the 2022 Homeless Point-In-Time Count.
Contact CapRadio reporter Chris Nichols at [email protected]
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