Honoring those who died while homeless in Sonoma County

The low stage in the dimly lit room was prepared for the service. There was a lectern with a microphone on it and behind that a table on which rested three beribboned vases holding white flowers and ferns, and 79 lit candles: one for each of the people being memorialized on Thursday, all of whom died homeless in Sonoma County in the past year.

Their names were all to be read once the service started.

“It’s normally a tough ceremony, so it'll be difficult,” said Andrea Urton, CEO of HomeFirst, a homelessness services agency that organized the event with the county Department of Health Services. She was speaking before the event at the Arlene Francis Center near Railroad Square, part of the nationwide marking of Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day.

“I'm hoping that people remember that the names we read are more than names,” Urton said. “They were someone's brother, sister, mother or father, child, and they mattered. They had a story that was unique to them while they were here on this planet. And those stories deserve to be remembered.”

Home First runs the county’s coordinated entry system, where people who are homeless register to become eligible for housing.

There were 1,577 people in the system Thursday, said Hunter Scott of HomeFirst, director of the system. He said a friend of his on the list of 79 people had been in the coordinated entry system waiting for housing, which came available the week he died.

Before the names were read, Rebekah Sammet spoke to the gathering of more than 75 people. She chairs the Lived Experience Advisory and Planning Board, a group of people who are or have been homeless and advise the county on homelessness policy and programs.

She recalled riding county buses from Cloverdale to Sonoma to Petaluma to “stay alive when I had no shelter to go to.” But, she said, “today isn't about me.”

Sammet, who is now housed, said: “I’m here in this gathering to honor you and to let you know that I have sleepless nights knowing about your dying days as if they were my own. And I am so sorry that no one was there to save your life when you needed it. We will not forget you for the suffering that you endured.”

It took just over 9 minutes to read the 79 names.

Kathleen Pozzi is a former Sonoma County public defender who is active with the Sonoma County Homeless Coalition, formerly the Continuum of Care, a consortium of local governments, nonprofits and other homeless service organizations that coordinates local homelessness policy and programs.

She choked up as she read aloud a portion of the list of 79 names.

Pozzi said she knew several on the list personally and recognized the names of about 70 percent of the names read Thursday, people she had met through her work with homelessness agencies and as a public defender.

“When I see these names, I knew these people and they were just like me,” Pozzi said afterward. “But I have a house and a job. And I was fortunate and they weren't.”

Over an 18-month period spanning two winters — from Nov. 1, 2021, to April 30, 2023 — at least 76 people died homeless in the county, coroner’s records show.

Additionally, an analysis performed for The Press Democrat by a Sonoma County Department of Health Services epidemiologist that cross referenced death certificates with the coroner’s records concluded that at least 125 people who were homeless died in that period.

The average age of those who died homeless in Sonoma County during that period was 53. The average age at death of the county population overall is 76.5.

Overall, the number of homeless people in the county — both unsheltered, including in motor vehicles, and those living in emergency shelters or transitional housing — dropped 22%, from 2,893 to 2,266, between 2002 and 2023, according to an annual federally-mandated Point in Time Count survey. That is the largest single-year drop since 2015, when there was a 27% drop. The next count is scheduled for Jan. 26.

Kevin Gibbons of Sebastopol heard Thursday morning about the memorial service and came to pay his respects.

“The situation we're in in this country shouldn't be like this,” he said. “The resources are here, and I know that there's good organizations, and money is being spent for some of this, but I don't really feel like enough is being done.“

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On X @jeremyhay