Vigil honors Stanislaus County residents who died homeless, including during pandemic
After a hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic, community members on Tuesday gathered for the annual Modesto vigil honoring people who died while experiencing homelessness in Stanislaus County.
By lighting candles and holding moments of silence at The Salvation Army’s Berberian Shelter, roughly 100 attendees memorialized the lives of 121 unhoused people who died in 2020 and 2021.
The number of names organizers received was the highest in the local vigil’s 15-year history, said Kimberlee Anderson, a behavior health advocate for Stanislaus County who coordinated the event with shelter director Virginia Carney. Names came from different sources, including people living on the streets and service providers, Anderson said. People placed a candle for each person as organizers read names and projected them onto a wall.
“The memorial is not only about the people who have passed, but it’s really for the people that are here,” Anderson said. “The people who have friends and loved ones who have died that didn’t get a memorial service, a funeral or anything like that. It’s like people get hit by a train and then they’re gone; that’s it.”
The event occurred on National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, which marks the winter solstice and longest night of the year. Local organizers did not hold a 2020 memorial because of the coronavirus pandemic, Anderson said, but how many homeless Stanislaus County residents died of COVID-19 is unknown.
When accepting submissions of names of people who died, Anderson said organizers do not ask for the cause and date of death or fact-check them. Stanislaus County does not track homeless deaths, The Bee previously reported, and cannot provide data from its records systems on how or when they die.
Homeless Stanislaus County residents can die from violence, drug overdose, suicide and untreated illnesses related to not seeing doctors regularly, Supervisor Terry Withrow told The Bee in a Sept. 27 article.
In a sample of 28 homeless deaths The Bee found by hand-searching county coroner records from 2017 to 2020, the average age of death was 51. People experiencing homelessness on average live 20 to 30 years less than people with stable housing, according to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.
For Tuesday’s vigil, Girl Scout Troop 3269 in Ceres made a tapestry for the people who died over the past two years. They wrote each name along with the phrases “not forgotten” and “in loving memory.” The troop also passed out free blankets and scarves at the end of the memorial.
The local Salvation Army and Stanislaus County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services sponsored the event this year. Nationally, the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council have sponsored Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day since 1990.
For the first time locally, organizers are planning to create a commemoration quilt after the vigil. Family members and friends can submit a small memento, such as a button, that can be sewn into a quilting square for each name. To make submissions for the quilt, Anderson said people can email notforgottenhpm@outlook.com or call 209-312 0940.
This story was originally published December 22, 2021 at 12:38 PM.
