Street roots., April 27, 2012, Image 1

I
S T R E E T R O O T S P H O T O IL L U S T R A T IO N
M ultnomah County releases its first report on how many homeless people died on our streets last year
BY JO AN NE ZUHL
S T A F F W R IT E R
aurie Crow would have been 54 on Dec. 27, 2011.
Instead, she became one of 47.
L
Only a few weeks before her birthday, she died curled
up in her sleeping bag in a meadow near Going Street. Her
partner, Clarence, was next to her, awake and listening as she
slept through daybreak.
What he was hearing, in fact, was her body cooling in the
December chill. It was Dec. 7.
The other 46 were also homeless, and all died on the streets
of Portland in 2011.
Fourty-seven: Nearly 1 a week.
That is the tally compiled in a groundbreaking report
co-published by Multnomah County and Street Roots to better
understand the toll taken by homelessness. The report is a
review of homeless deaths recorded by the Multnomah County
Medical Examiner’s office. While similar reports have been
compiled in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and
Philadelphia, this is the first of its kind for Portland.
“It was really shocking, the diversity of the group of folks. It
really was as diverse as our community: age range, men and
women, ethnicity,” said Multnomah County Commissioner
Deborah Kafoury, who helped spearhead the count. “People like
to think - to distance themselves from this problem - that that
could never be me or anyone I know, but in reality, that s not the
case.”
The report, titled “Domicile Unknown,” is only an initial view
through the lens. It includes only those cases that cross the
medical examiner’s office, namely those not under the care of a
physician who died from specific causes or circumstances such
as accidents or substance abuse. It does not encompass what the
county acknowledges are many others who have died homeless
who may have been receiving medical care, such as those who
went to an emergency room before death. But it lays the
Portland
Children's Levy
makes deep cuts
Organizations that
serve minorities
hardest hit
Page 3
g ro u n d w o rk for fu tu re in fo rm atio n th a t to u c h e s th e la rg e r
population on the streets.
For privacy, the report does not list names or specific
circumstances surrounding each death.
But those who died in 2011 ranged in
age from 18 to 68, and the median age
of death was 49. Eleven died of natural "1 want to really show the
causes, 28 from accidental causes,
com m unity a different picture of
including trauma or intoxication. There
homelessness in Multnomah
were four suicides, two homicides and
County: To help people
two of undetermined causes. All but
seven were men.
understand that having
“I want to really show the
homelessness in our com m unity
community a different picture of
affects a ll of nsr and it's not just
homelessness in Multnomah County,”
about the m orality of whether we
Kafoury said. “To help people
understand that having homelessness
should allow people to sleep on
in our community affects all of us, and
the streets? but that It affects the
it’s not just about the morality of
fabric of our community«"
whether we should allow people to
— D E BO R A H K A FO U R Y
sleep on the streets, but that it affects
M U L T N O M A H C O U N T Y C O M M S S IO N E R
the fabric of our community. Having a
place to live makes people more
productive, contributing economically
and socially. It makes people healthier, and that it really is a
basic right to have a safe decent place to sleep at night.”
he process started simple enough: In 2010, with the urging
of the Multnomah County Health Department, the Medical
Examiners office added a check box on forms for “domicile
unknown.” It gave the medical examiners a new category for
people determined homeless after authorities exhausted all
T
See DEATHS page 10
Just one more
question!
Candidates for
mayor, City
Council give
their final answer
Page 4
Beat of a
gypsy Hart
Street Roots
interviews drummer
Mickey Hart
Page 8