It should go without saying that homelessness elevates an individual’s risk of illness, injury and death. Having little access to health care or healthy food, even homeless people living in milder climates like, for example, the Bay Area, pass away decades earlier than people who have access to housing and health-care.
According to data provided by the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, the average age of death for a homeless person is 50 - which was the average age of deaths for all Americans in 1900, before the discovery of modern antibiotics.
But while the bitter reality that homeless people face is evident to every American who feels the sting of guilt every time they ignore a panhandler on a busy city street,, few state and local governments accurately collect comprehensive data specifically identifying a deceased individual as homeless - meaning that the data is incomplete.
In rapidly gentrifying Oakland, an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle determined that thousands of homeless who die within the city limits aren’t officially identified as homeless on their death certificates, making it easier for public officials to ignore a worsening crisis as rising property values and rents increasingly push the most vulnerable individuals out onto the streets.
Meanwhile, Mayor Libby Schaaf is more concerned with protecting undocumented immigrants, even immigrants with violent criminal histories than she is with ensuring the city’s most vulnerable legal residents are attended to - or, at least, that some degree of outreach or acknowledgement is extended to this steadily rising population.
In its story, the Chronicle, opens with the example of Larry Bothelo, whose dead body was discovered decomposing in his truck, which he kept parked near the Oakland Airport. Nothing in Bothelo’s documents indicated that he was homeless. In fact, the corner listed his address as the streetcorner from which his truck was eventually towed away.
It had been weeks since Larry Joseph Botelho was spotted outside the box truck he lived in and kept parked near the Oakland airport. By the time someone asked police to check on him, the 63-year-old homeless man’s body was decomposing on a makeshift bed in the truck.
The Alameda County coroner’s office determined he died of natural causes. An investigator tracked down doctors, social workers and former employers, ran fingerprints, reviewed government records and an ancestry website, but found no relatives.
Botelho was cremated as an indigent — his ashes sent to Holy Cross Cemetery in Antioch, and his truck towed. Coroner’s case No. 01378 was closed.
Nothing in the official record shows he died homeless. His death certificate lists a home address: the spot on 98th Avenue where his truck was parked.
As the Chronicle notes, Alameda County - a county that encompasses Oakland and the surrounding area - does not collect data on how many homeless people die each year or their causes of death. And even if it did - neither the state nor the federal government track these data, or require them to be collected, meaning that even the figures cited above constitute very rough estimates.
However, even without clear data, advocates for the homeless agree that the twin problems of homelessness and homeless mortaility are rapidly getting worse - not just in the Bay Area, but across the US. In New York City and many other cities across the country, homeless people are dying in obscurity at increasingly high rates.
The Chronicle checked with coroners’ and medical examiners’ offices, county public health departments, the California Department of Public Health, U.S. Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and found that none had records on how many homeless people die — or mandates to collect the information.
The California Electronic Death Registration System, a database run by the state Department of Public Health, occasionally gets a death certificate where "homeless" or "encampment" is listed in place of a person’s residence, said spokeswoman Theresa Mier. But there aren’t any guidelines for doctors or medical examiners on when to use the designation.
Likewise, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department doesn’t have information or know of any national estimates on deaths of homeless individuals, said spokeswoman Carla Daniels.
What’s left is a smattering of local agencies and nonprofits that track homeless death rates in a piecemeal way. Their data lack a standardized definition of what constitutes homelessness, rendering their numbers erratic and unrealiable.
One local official justified this approach by arguing that it helps keep the dignity of the deceased intact - and that often, in cases when a next of kin can be found - it shows that the police aren’t judging them.
Once a homeless person dies — usually decades earlier than the U.S. life expectancy — investigators proceed with the same steps they do for any deceased person, said Lt. David Vandagriff, who runs the Alameda County coroner’s bureau.
First, they identify the dead. Next, they track down the family. Autopsies are conducted and reports are made. But a person’s housing status often does not make it into the official record.
If investigators can track down an address associated with the dead — where an estranged spouse lives or the place they would pick up mail — they often won’t be marked as homeless in the paperwork that documents how they died and who they were. If they find no address, they may write “homeless” or “transient” in that section of a death record."We are duty bound to show them respect and dignity," Vandagriff said. "Quite often when we’re interacting with next of kin, we want to show them that this is not something that we’re judging your departed on. We’re not classifying them as anything other than a departed member of your family."
Unlike Oakland, San Francisco and Contra Costa County do keep track of homeless mortaility data - but in each case, officials cautioned that the data are likely a significant underestimation.
In San Francisco, a woman named Alice, who for years lived on the sidewalk outside a Burger King, likely will not be included in the city’s 2018 count because she moved into a single-room-occupancy hotel in the Mission before she died last month, said Rachael Kagan, spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Health.
Unlike Oakland, San Francisco compiles the number of homeless people who die each year. But officials caution that their count is probably a significant underestimation because homeless people who spend their last days in housing or a hospital may not make the tally.
In Contra Costa County, Capt. Steve Simpkins of the coroner’s office provided numbers but emphasized they aren’t perfectly accurate. They showed that an average of 33 homeless people died each year over the past decade, but last year the figure jumped to 64. He said nothing was readily apparent to explain the increase.
The lack of systematic data — or any data at all — when it comes to people dying on the streets is in sharp contrast to the concerted effort to count how many people are living on the streets.
One recent attempt to conduct an informal census of the homeless population in Oakland revealed an alarming figure: Last year in Alameda County, the so-called point-in-time census revealed a 25% jump in the homeless population in Oakland and a nearly 40% increase countywide.
Bobby Watts, CEO of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, said it’s vital to know the mortality rate of the homeless population.
"It’s the first and most basic measure of health or public health: Is someone alive or dead?" he said. "It’s an extremely important measure. It’s something we need to know. Some localities do a better job than others."
Cities that do make efforts to collect data noted an increase in homeless deaths last year, Watts said.
The collection of uniform and reliable homeless death data could help create policies to prevent deaths, say some health and homeless services providers. It could also help spur action to tackle the crisis.
"This is information that can be used to create interventions and just to underscore the long-term solution of housing," Watts said. “It doesn’t have to be 100 percent accurate, but it’s better to have some good information than none at all.”
Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, said if more people knew how dire homelessness is — by way of mortality statistics, for instance — there might be a heightened sense of urgency.
"A lot of people don’t understand how serious a problem this is and who is affected and why," she said. "When people are dying — that’s just another piece of evidence that it’s a public health emergency."
Lucy Kasdin, deputy director of Alameda County’s Health Care for the Homeless unit, said statistics on homeless deaths would be “incredibly valuable” in developing interventions and figuring out how to best allocate resources.
But even as city officials pour money into clinics for the homeless, one researcher says data conclusively show that the only real remedy for improving longevity would be to provide housing - everything else is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound.
Josh Bamberger, a UCSF physician who has been treating homeless patients for the past two decades, said there’s already sufficient data on the perils of homelessness.
"We have mountains of data to tell us why homelessness is bad," he said. "It’s bad for your health, it’s expensive, and it kills you at a younger age."
He pointed to a 2009 research paper he co-authored that examined the impact of housing on the survival of homeless people with AIDS. Only two out of 71 placed in housing died after five years. In the same period, three-quarters of the 610 people without housing had died. Some studies have indicated that homelessness is correlated with a 25-year decrease in one’s life expectancy.
“If the health care system embraced housing as the one and true treatment to improve the health of homeless people, that money would be well spent,” Bamberger said. “I used to believe I should put my energies in providing the best care. … But there’s an absurdity in having a patient with perfect blood pressure, perfect control of their sugar and treatment of their cancers and then rolling them out in their wheelchair into the rain.”
But as mayors like Schaaf risk losing federal block-grant funding over their categorical defenses of “sanctuary cities” and the undocumented, the downside of this is the population that is truly the most vulnerable is shunted aside and ignored.
Which begs the question: How many bodies in the streets will it take before city officials decide to take a closer look at homeless mortality and the steps that could be taken to ameliorate it.
Comments
They're white, so it's a good thing for the governors when they die. Low IQ mulatto slave consumers are much more profitable.
say what tyler?:
"every American who feels the sting of guilt every time they ignore a panhandler on a busy city street"
if anything, i feel a little envious
nothing wrong with being broke or homeless, it's a valid choice as any, we all make our own choices
In reply to They're white, so it's a… by coaltar
Americans need a revolution. Too bad no one is going to organize them for it. Because the organizers got all the power now and don't need no more revolutions.
In reply to every American who feels the… by stacking12321
Trump should call California out and so should Session on this but he is too busy hugging Bibi. Meanwhile, Jared Kushner-Soros at 666 Park Ave. and Ivanka Soros-Clinton attend more parties with Soros and the Clintons.
So much for draining the swamp and the Q Anon hoax. Yeah the military inside good guys are going to save us with Q Anon. Meanwhile - Julian Assange rots and Kim.com's business was stolen from him and DOj is still after him.
In reply to every American who feels the… by stacking12321
In the leftists world, Americans must be punished for all their past transgressions against people of color.
In reply to They're white, so it's a… by coaltar
Fucking Bitch needs to be drug out of the building and Mussolini'd. Liberals are the filth of the planet and the enemies of freedom and liberty (and the RINOs ain't no better, right McLame)?
A man. White. Born here.
Nobody cares.
there are millions of part time jobs out there...it sounds like the homeless white man just didn't want to work. Hell, he could have picked lettuce and had a far superior life.
In reply to A man. White. Born here… by balz
"homeless man asks you for money, offer him a job"
-TYLER DURDEN
why hasnt chuck palacknik sued abc media/zh???? hahaha fuck you chuck! where is marla?
In reply to "homeless man asks you for… by VisceralFat1
If I were homeless I probably would be happy if I died at 50.
I would observe the Oakland government officials are corrupt and should be investigated and prosecuted and imprisoned for their crimes against American taxpayers......
The Gay area has been corrupt since the Harvey Milk days and likely long before that.
In reply to I would observe the Oakland… by whatisthat
I know a CA liberal couple that just had their first child. In their mid 40's no less. The dad is Mexican and the mother is white. The baby is also white because they did this mega expensive fertilization bullshit because nature said people in their 40's shouldn't be having kids. Anyway, I'm wondering if they'll teach the kid to hate himself for being white?
dude there is people going on tv on 23 and me saying theyre INDIAN because 23 and me told them they got 6% !!!! indian blood/dna!! BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA six percent! "i wanted to know about my culture" this is late stage fucking holoow meaningless lives lived through holograms and spectacle capitalism.
...just make money off it...im selling 6% native t shirts on ebay!
In reply to I know a CA liberal couple… by Green2Delta
hey tylers asshole shitface faggots, why dont you talk abou thow both oaklands homeless and illegal immigrants are a 100% a fxn of wall street greed and fuck your clickbait abceeee medeeeiaaahhh
Democrap Party Platform-We care, we want to help you, we'll raise taxes to fix this problem, it's not your fault, the rich are the problem, just send us money and vote for us. If these problems aren't fixed by the next election then see above and we'll do it again..,.only better.
if the illegals can find work, then the homeless should be able to find work. maybe the homeless are homeless for a reason...they don't want to work.
Meanwhile....
Illegal Alien Crime Report
http://www.illegalaliencrimereport.com/
Monthly Illegal Alien Child-Sex Crimes For North Carolina Alone
http://www.ncfire.info/
Non-US Citizens Commit Crime At 2.5x Their Population Share
http://newobserveronline.com/non-us-citizens-commit-crime-at-2-5x-their…
Medical Staff Warned: Keep Your Mouths Shut About Illegal Immigrant Disease Threats Or Face Arrest
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/07/02/medical-staff-warned-keep-qui…
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/08/17/unchecked-mass-migration-caus…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/19/diseases-thought-era…
Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet (M.D.): 20 Diseases "Refugees" Bring Into The West
http://www.wnd.com/2017/07/the-20-diseases-refugees-bring-into-the-west/
it says a lot of this nation when we have money to attack others but not to support each other. i in no way support socialism but issues like this do not occur when a system truly cars about its people. a system that truly cares about its people would have solved these problems way before it became an issue. there is a saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and it is very clear to me that the system would rather profit off that pound of cure than spend that ounce of prevention.
Libby is a carpet bagger and opportunist. She saw her shot at seeing her name in lights and took it. There are dozens of homeless encampments under freeway overpasses, at the edges of junkyards, on median strips - where the hardy bush varietals make for a convenient and organic shitter - and wherever else they can be fit. "Libby" can't do jackshit about it, can't even afford to send Sanitation to pick up the trash - so they sit and fester. Same goes for the SF and Berkeley mayors - and heroes "Kamila" and "Gavin" ...
These people are junkies enjoying the benefits of a left-wing govt. and free wino checks each month. Some are trying obviously to keep it together - I see guys with brooms sweeping the sidewalks - but they get dragged down.
City rulers and services are overwhelmed - so they pass useless left-rolling ordinances to distract from the conditions.
Soyboys just step over and around - pecking on their iPhones - getting used to their futures as it unfolds...
Payback for these Bitches in Gov, is going to be a Bitch.
But while the bitter reality that homeless people face is evident to every American who feels the sting of guilt every time they ignore a panhandler on a busy city street
Sting of guilt? Gee, I must be defective as I feel no sting. You see, my taxes go to fund various welfare parasites who get to leach off of my labor. Excluding the seriously mentally ill, most homeless are that way due to horrible life choices like drugs and alcohol.
I am supposed to feel guilty because THEY screwed up?
Nope.