A file photo of an unrelatred vigil from Oakland, California. Advocates last weekend held the annual Longest Night Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service, where they read the names of the 21 people who died homeless this year in the relative wealth of Anne Arundel County. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.
They are among the 21 men and women identified as having died homeless this year in Anne Arundel County – one of the wealthiest areas in Maryland, one of the most prosperous states in the nation, and one of richest places on Earth. Their deaths show homelessness is everywhere.
Earl Johnson
Brian Ward
Nicolas Jarry
Last Saturday, Dec. 21, on the first night of winter — the longest night of the year and the longest night for people on the street — speakers read their names, a roll call of the dead, in People’s Park in Annapolis. The Longest Night Homeless Persons’ Memorial Service, held annually here since 2013, was one of more than 200 such services in cities and towns nationwide.
The number of people who die homeless each year is unknown, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, a nonprofit in Nashville, Tennessee, but it estimates that number at anywhere between 17,500 and 46,500.
Jesus Hernandez
Bryonna Parker
Stephan FaudreeÂ
“We hold this service to help make people, the general public, aware of homelessness,” says Mario Berninzoni, executive director of the Anne Arundel (County) and Annapolis Coalition to End Homelessness and head of the Arundel House of Hope, a homeless shelter in Glen Burnie.
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“We also do it because our clients (upwards of 800 a year) may have known a lot of these people who died and never had an opportunity to show their respect and attend their funerals,” Berninzoni says. Many have no funeral.
William Brown
James Levi Young III
Charles Passero
While there are no official nationwide counts of homeless deaths, the number is believed to be rising, given that homelessness has increased in recent years due largely to inadequate affordable housing and soaring housing prices, up nearly 50 percent since 2020, along with the end of COVID-19 aid.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual “Point-in-Time” report found more than 650,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2023, a 12% increase from 2022. In Maryland, the number reached 5,865.
Robert Pope
Aakim Jones
Jasmen Wilkerson
Without a permanent address, the homeless live on the street, in a park, in a shelter, or in a car – if fortunate enough to have access to one. Others live with family or friends, often sleeping on a couch with their belongings in a paper bag. Many move – every few days, weeks, or months – from the home of one friend or relative to another.
Chief causes of homelessness include lack of affordable housing, poverty, mental illness, addiction, unemployment and domestic violence. On average, the homeless die 20 years earlier than the housed, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.
Eric Moldoven
Nakair Hearns
Amelia Puderbaugh
In Maryland, a person would have to earn at least $30.93 an hour, double the minimum wage, to afford a fair market value one-bedroom apartment at $1,608 per month. That’s among the findings of an annual report, “Out of Reach 2024: The High Cost of Housing,” by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a research organization in Washington, D.C. Despite rising wages, cooling inflation, and low unemployment in recent years, it found low-wage workers still struggle with rent.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and the General Assembly enacted legislation this year to ease the state’s estimated 96,000-unit housing shortage. Claudia Wilson Randall, executive director of the Community Development Network of Maryland, welcomes the action. But Randall says more needs to be done to reverse the still-growing housing shortage, which she estimates now tops 110,000 units. “This isn’t someone else’s problem,” Randall says. “It’s all of our problem.”
Waverly Bryant
Tabitha Clark
Oliver Sellman
Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman, a former community organizer for the poor, told the gathering in People’s Park: “The billionaires who are taking power in Washington … have told us what is in store for us – defunding the social safety net, defunding housing programs, defunding food stamps, defunding health services.
“These policies will put individuals and families and children and seniors on the street,” Pittman said. “Using the money they take from us to pay for tax cuts for the rich is a cruel insult to all Americans …. But I’m an optimist. I believe in these coming years, the work that we do, the crisis that we see, will mobilize us. We have the assets. Let’s not be afraid to put them to work.”
Joseph Knight
Naveen Joshi
April Ingram
“They all have stories,” Berninzoni said of the dead. “They all had people who loved them.”
Then the crowd of about 100, bundled up against the bitter cold, together sang, “Silent Night.”