Mourners remember nearly 200 who died homeless in Sacramento County this year
A crowd gathered in Cesar E. Chavez Plaza downtown on the longest night of the year to memorialize nearly 200 people who died while homeless in Sacramento County in 2025.
The vigil — hosted by the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign and the Black Hair and Black Hygiene Project — was the 13th annual event to honor people who died while struggling to find shelter in and around the California capital. Many of those gathered passed around a microphone for 16 minutes and took turns reading 175 names.
One of the dead was James “Captain” Little, an ingenious builder and designer who created sleeping trailers. Niki Jones, executive director of the coalition, called him a dear friend and said he had been “relentless” in advocating for himself and other people living on the streets. He was 64.
Another was Wendy Connell, who refused to play children’s music for the grandson she helped care for as a baby, opting instead for ’90s alternative rock. Connell and her longtime partner, Phil Minton, enrolled in a new drug treatment program and were feeling optimistic about the future before she was fatally hit by a truck while biking to a dental appointment. She was 54.
Jones described homelessness as “a public health crisis,” a concern supported by data from the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office. Preliminary findings show that in 2025, 71% of people who died while experiencing homelessness were under 60 years old, with about half in their 40s or 50s. Nearly 100 died outdoors, and 63 died in hospitals. By comparison, the national life expectancy is nearly 80 years.
The number of dead cited at the vigil was an undercount. In an online database of homeless deaths maintained by the Coroner’s Office, there were 197 people listed Monday morning , all in ZIP codes that are either entirely or mostly in Sacramento County.
Both lists included only those already identified as homeless at the time that they died by the Coroner’s Office. Neither number included deaths of people whose residence was still under investigation.
The preliminary figure reflects an 22% increase from 2024, when 162 unhoused people died in Sacramento County, according to a Bee analysis.
Homeless struggle to survive
Brother Kevin Carter, who helps lead the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign, pointed out that encampment evictions — referred to as sweeps — often destroy tents, sleeping bags and food that people rely on to survive.
“If they don’t have a tent,” Carter asked, “what do they have?”
Losing survival gear, he said, causes “bad health.” In turn, he said, that can lead to death. Two people on the coroner’s list — Terrence Shoots, 54, and Mitchell Meredith, 65 — froze to death last winter. The city has previously defended sweeps, with Mayor Kevin McCarty saying he has “a value of common sense that public places that the community uses are not appropriate for people to have campsites and overnight camping.”
Satearah Murphy, who co-founded the former encampment known as Camp Resolution, spoke at the vigil Sunday night and insisted on treating homeless people with dignity.
“I go to work every day — I got a good job, but I still go home to a tent,” Murphy said. “You could be a drug addict, you could be a lawyer, you could be a doctor, you could be whatever you want to be in this world. That don’t make you not a person. You’re still a human being.”
Murphy said she grieves people who die on the streets each year, calling the stakes “life and death.” She was severely injured in a dog attack in March and said a homeless drug user saved her life.
“If it wasn’t for a homeless man,” she said, “I could be one of the names that you guys are saying tonight.”
The evening wasn’t just a memorial to the dead. The organizers handed out hygiene kits with items such as hand sanitizer, toothbrushes, toothpaste and haircare products; they gave out dry socks, sweaters and warm hats; on a night that would get rainy, they passed out tarps and tents. Members of Sacramento Punks with Lunch served steaming corn chowder and vegetable soup.
