Homeless Deaths Are Rising At A Much Greater Rate Than Homelessness

By Will Huntsberry, Voice of San Diego:

It’s a contradiction in terms, but homeless people have neighbors. Like Donald Yancey, who lived in a tent on National Avenue. He was a neighbor to many. He was Jas’s next-door neighbor since forever.

Jas loved Donald. Donald knew the Bible well and would talk to her about it. That gave her a lot of comfort, which was priceless, because living on National Avenue is very uncomfortable.
No one knows how Donald died – not his neighbors and not the medical examiner’s office. All Jas knows is she came home on April 16 and Donald was dead. People had lined up to come by his tent.

His street sister Pebbles moved in that morning.

Neighbors die a lot on National Avenue.

Homeless neighbors are dying at unprecedented rates all over San Diego County. Since 2012, homelessness has not increased nearly as much as most people assume. But the death rate among homeless San Diegans has exploded.

In 2022, an estimated 588 homeless people died in San Diego County. That’s nearly six times higher than 2012, when 114 homeless people died, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner. The homeless population did not increase over the same time period, according to the annual point-in-time count.

The limited data available for this year suggests the death rate may go down in 2023, but not to pre-2020 levels.

Jas – many people like her go only by their street name – has a theory about Donald.

“I think he died from giving up,” she said. “People really do get to that point. The streets will do that to you.”

That theory may sound esoteric, but “deaths of despair” is a real medical term, accounting for drug overdose, liver disease and suicide. Drug overdoses are the biggest driving factor behind the increased death rate.

Read more here.

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