DIRECTOR’S DESK | The yearly Domicile Unknown count underscores the urgent need for reliable health care
At least 92 people died while experiencing homelessness in Multnomah County. These are the highest numbers since Street Roots began releasing the annual Domicile Unknown report with Multnomah County in 2011.
Eleven percent died by homicide, up from previous years, underscoring the violence perpetrated against unhoused Portlanders. Ten percent percent died by suicide. Just over half of the deaths involved drugs or alcohol.
As in previous years, the average age of death was in the 40s. The average age of death for the 70 men in the count was 48, and the average age for the 22 women was 43. The report captures only a portion of those who die in hospitals.
This report demands we take measure of the lives lost on the streets. Since the Domicile Unknown reports began in 2011, at least 530 people have died homeless in Multnomah County. County Chair Deborah Kafoury, Tri-County Health Officer Dr. Paul Lewis and Chief Medical Examiner Kimberly DiLeo lead the county efforts to gather this data.
We feel this acutely at Street Roots. Already this year, at least nine vendors have died. Some of them homeless. All of them living in extreme poverty, close to the streets.
To be homeless, or friends with people who are homeless, is to lose friends to early death again and again. People keep dying. Too many, too soon.
This report forces us to see in stark numbers how people are subjected to trauma that exacerbates chronic health woes. Some people land on the streets because of health struggles in the first place, unable to pay medical bills, too sick to work. This is about how substance use disorder is a health care issue, and how people medicate against homelessness — trying to stay awake or go to sleep — and medicate through struggles of trauma. This is about the grip of despair and the relentlessness of violence.
Housing is health care: A door with a lock and a key creates a space to be safe, the autonomy to heal, and the ability to hold onto sentimental belongings that nourish the spirit. There is so much heartache from people who have lost family photos or parents’ ashes when their belongings are swept up like trash.
Access to reliable health care is urgent, including services for mental health and substance use disorders. Supportive housing connects these services to a place for people to safely exist.
And we need more places where unhoused people can go before they are too desperate. This is my hope for the Multnomah County-planned Downtown Behavioral Health Resource Center: a place where people can exist, with the spirit of hospitality and the possibility of extra support.
It matters to be connected to others in our health and our healing.
Rather than push for people on the streets to disappear, we need to really see them, and support them with our actions. It is about loving people that much.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2019 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
