Hers was one of the 500 homeless deaths in Sacramento since 2023. ‘She fought til her last day’
Shonn Adams survived a decade on Sacramento-area streets and riverbanks and thought she finally had a ticket into housing.
Adams, 55, was one of the 50 homeless men and women who landed a coveted spot in a first-of-its kind encampment called Camp Resolution. She was thrilled to have water, food and bathrooms while she awaited promised permanent housing. Living in a tent along the American River for years had exacerbated her COPD, and caused her to break her leg and become reliant on a wheelchair.
A Sacramento Homeless Union attorney assured Camp Resolution residents he had negotiated language in the lease to ensure the city could not close the camp without giving everyone permanent housing. But then in early August the city announced it would close the camp anyway, due to fire code violations.
Adams wept as she spoke with The Sacramento Bee about the impending closure.
“I didn’t wanna be here,” Adams said while sitting outside her trailer in August. “I went to college, I went to work every day. I did all that stuff. I got laid off and lost everything. They forget you’re a human being out here. They just wanna hide you ... I’ve had bottles thrown at me, eggs, rocks, people saying ‘go get a job.’ I tried to get a job. I wanted to work. I tried.”
Two weeks later, when the city closed the camp, Adams and her husband Steven Goble moved into a hotel with their three pets. The homeless union and Adams’ doctor’s office paid for the hotel, Goble said.
The animals — Honey, the dog Adams adopted after her daughter died, and cats Tut and Gemini — were both pillars in the couple’s lives and barriers in their search for housing.
“They tell me to get rid of my babies, my animals, in order to get a home,” she told The Bee in August. “I can’t do that. I won’t do that.”
Adams had studied to be a vet tech in college and said that the pets were registered emotional support animals.
Nonprofit Hope Cooperative was planning to move the family into housing, Goble said. But before that could happen, Adams grew very sick. She was hospitalized with kidney stones and underwent emergency surgery. On Dec. 2 she died. The coroner’s office will not investigate the death to determine the cause, county spokeswoman Kim Nava said. Generally, under state law, the office does not investigate natural deaths that occur in hospitals.
Adams is one of at least 162 homeless people who died in Sacramento in 2024. The coroner’s office is still calculating the total number for the year. In 2023, 325 homeless people died in Sacramento, according to data from the coroner’s office and compiled by The Bee. It’s the first year the total has topped 300.
Finding her voice
Despite her serious health issues, when the city first announced in May it planned to close Camp Resolution, Adams sprung into action.
Over the next several months, activists and fellow camp residents watched as Adams, who rarely left the comfort of her trailer, became one of the leading voices for keeping the camp open. In August, she participated in a demonstration from the capitol to City Hall and delivered a powerful testimony in front of the City Council.
Those actions took a toll on her body, however, she said.
“I did all the protesting,” Adams told The Bee in August. “I got up and hurt myself doing it.”
Tamitha Myler, who lived in Camp Resolution with Adams, said she remembers the week when Adams started coming out of her trailer and participating in camp meetings.
“She pretty much kept her head up and stayed to herself but when she came out of her place to the meetings, man, you for sure knew she was there,” Myler said. “People for sure was gonna hear what she had to say.”
Mackenzie Wilson, a homeless activist who worked with Camp Resolution, remembered how Adams spoke publicly when she was finding her powerful voice.
“She spoke not just about her deserving of better from a city she grew up in and raised her family in, but about how every person deserved access to choice and opportunity,” Wilson said. “In City Hall, she spoke the same. And even through her tears, she spoke so much power and told those who had control over to access to services that she didn’t deserve to die on the streets. Unfortunately, she did. But I will never forget how she fought til her last day.”
Record number of homeless deaths
In 2023 and 2024 combined, Sacramento has had at least 500 homeless deaths.
That number includes deaths provided by the coroner’s office and also a handful compiled by the Bee. The real number is higher because the coroner’s office generally does not investigate natural deaths that occur in hospitals, or place them on its list.
A Bee analysis of the data found the county’s homeless are prone to die young. About 70% of homeless people who died in Sacramento County, including Adams, were under 60. By comparison, less than 20% of all Sacramento County residents who died in 2023 and 2024 were under 60, CDC data show.
In 2024, the youngest known homeless person who died was Breanna Walters, 21. She died in Rancho Cordova of diabetic ketoacidosis.
Roughly 80% of homeless people who died in Sacramento County were men. By comparison, about 52% of all Sacramento County residents who died in 2023 and 2024 were men.
A disproportionate number of homeless people who died in Sacramento were Black; they accounted for 21% of homeless deaths. By comparison, Black people comprised about 11% of all deaths in Sacramento County in 2023 and 2024. The proportion of homeless deaths involving Asian people and white people was disproportionately small.
Injuries were mentioned as a cause of death in about 18% of deaths among Sacramento County homeless people, including multiple homeless residents who were struck by cars or killed in homicides. By comparison, injury was mentioned as a cause of death in about 4% of all Sacramento County residents who died in 2023.
When Sara Beebe was fatally stabbed outside Loaves and Fishes in July, it caused the nonprofit to close for a day, for the first time in decades.
Drug use was mentioned as a cause of death in about 53% of deaths among Sacramento County homeless people. By comparison, drug use was mentioned as a cause of death in about 6% of all Sacramento County residents who died in 2023.
Many of the drug-related homeless deaths in the last two years involved meth, fentanyl, or both. During the two years, fentanyl was a factor in at least 110 of the deaths.
Sacramento Homeless Union president Crystal Sanchez said people often turn to drugs to self medicate for the pain because of the barriers they face in getting appointments with doctors and psychiatrists.
“People are basically being slipped fentanyl,” Sanchez said. “Most people who die from overdose are unaware that it is fentanyl-laced and is extremely addicting. We have people every day wanting to get clean, but there is no housing or rehabilitation to send these people to. Often times when they do get into rehab, there’s no housing to put them in. Therefore they fall back to the streets.”
‘She was constantly worried’
Adams’ doctors had said stress worsens her physical health, Goble said. He believes Camp Resolution’s closure played a role in her death.
“She was constantly worried about what was gonna happen next,” Goble said. “Her anxiety was up, her blood pressure was up.”
After Adams death, Hope Cooperative never provided Goble the housing, said Sanchez.
Hope Cooperative spokeswoman Karina Riley said the organization is not responsible for who gets housed.
“Hope Cooperative is a developer of Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), but we do not have any say or sway with who gets placed in it and when,” Riley said in a statement. “Every person identified as needing shelter, or homeless in Sacramento County is placed via Coordinated Access. Coordinated Access prioritizes people who are in need of housing using a vulnerability scale. An individual’s partner passing would not have had any effect on their housing status.”
Goble remains with the animals he shared with Adams even though they continue to limit his housing options.
“I don’t know what I’d do without all three of them, really,” Goble said. “They’re all a part of me and her.”
He returned to living on the streets in Del Paso Heights last month.
This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
