Unhoused people and their advocates marched through downtown Washington Wednesday in an annual vigil to honor those who died homeless in the District in the past 12 months.
Washington, D.C
Dozens died unhoused in D.C. this year as homelessness spiked
Since the medical examiner typically takes up to 90 days to rule on a cause of death, the number of homeless people who died is almost certainly higher than the number reported.
Still, the official number was lower than that reported by advocates, whose informal count showed 90 people died while unhoused, including 57 who were granted a housing voucher that would cover some or all of their monthly housing costs but had not yet found a place to live. The slow churn of the District’s voucher process came under scrutiny this year as backlogs and staffing issues jammed the system and left scores of the city’s most vulnerable residents to face months of housing uncertainty and homelessness.
Many unhoused people who died — 60 of 77 — perished in accidents caused by intoxication, according to medical examiner data. Eleven died from natural causes and three were homicide victims, the data said.
Rachelle Ellison, assistant director of the advocacy group People for Fairness Coalition, said ahead of the vigil that the end of emergency pandemic funding forced many people onto the street. One man, Leo Colter, was fatally shot and found dead on a park bench in McPherson Square, where he lived.
Ellison said Colter was “a big teddy bear” — a person who, like many unhoused D.C. residents, struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues but never harmed anyone. As the longest night of the year approaches, Ellison — who was homeless for 17 years herself — said it is her duty to honor Colter and people like him.
“I need to remember them for me,” she said. “It could have been me.”
About 4 p.m., around 100 advocates gathered at Luther Place Church on Thomas Circle before an empty coffin placed on the church’s altar — a symbol of those who, as advocates put it, “died without the dignity of a home.”
After distributing a list of the 90 people who died — identified only by initials and age — advocates chanting “Housing is a human right!” marched down 14th Street through rush hour traffic to Freedom Plaza. There, in a tent on the plaza, formerly homeless people and policymakers spoke of the need to make more housing available to those in need.
Reginald Black, a member of the People for Fairness Coalition, said he was homeless for a decade before he found a place to live. Most of those who die unhoused are people of color, according to Black, who face chronic unemployment as their existence is criminalized when their only crime is poverty.
“There is no difference between a runaway slave and a homeless person,” he said.
Councilmember Robert C. White Jr. (D-At Large) criticized Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) for what he said was a failure to get people housed despite increasing spending on homelessness. The vast majority of young adults and single adults experiencing homelessness in the District remained unhoused last year despite an infusion of housing vouchers.
“It’s not enough to have a program,” he said. “The program has to work.”
A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment.
Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) said she was there to honor David L. Ashmore, a homeless man in his 80s who lived in Ward 4. Ashmore was being connected with housing and had even looked at apartments but died after his encampment was cleared, according to George.
“The government failed him,” George said. “I don’t think there’s a better way to put it.”
The vigil comes a week after federal government data showed homelessness increased a record 12 percent in 2023. The White House last year announced that it hoped to cut homelessness 25 percent by 2025.
If that goal is to be reached, the numbers are going in the wrong direction. More than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2023, according to an annual assessment released by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development — the highest number of people recorded as experiencing homelessness on a single night since reporting began in 2007.
Local trends were in line with this increase. Data released in May showed the number of people experiencing homelessness in D.C. has increased by 11.6 percent over the past year, including a significant uptick in those living on the streets for the first time.
Inside the tent on Freedom Plaza, Jet Rippy, 54, was eating catered Popeyes chicken, sharing some with her service dog Sweet Tooth. She said she became homeless in 2018 after losing a job. Rippy is now squatting in her family home with no electricity in Ward 5 after the death of her grandmother and mother. She said she has been robbed of her legitimate claim to the home by a family member who disapproves of her because she is bisexual, she said.
Rippy said she was desperate to find a way out of homelessness but hasn’t found one. She dislikes panhandling. She wants to work and even studied journalism in college. But nothing has come together.
She had some advice for those who interact with the homeless.
“Be kind,” she said. “You never know when you’re going to be in this situation.”
Marissa Lang contributed to this report.