Aaron Tappley, Antonio Garcia, Brandon Coleman, Carol Horner.
The names of 102 Portlanders who died while homeless in 2025 were read out one at a time from the pulpit in the small sanctuary at St. André Bessette Catholic Church, the one with the red doors on the edge of Old Town.
The names were not from an official government list. Instead, they were crowdsourced by the coalition of homeless services nonprofits that hosted the annual vigil, always held on winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
It took four people to read them all: Dave Paul Collins, Debbie Johnson, Johnny Boyd, Martin Naugle. There were three Brians, two Richards and someone who went by Ocean.
A woman carrying an infant stood up to say she’d lost the baby’s father when she was seven months pregnant. Another woman spoke about her brother, who at 31 fell into a mental health crisis that landed him outside, despite his and his family’s efforts to help him. Molly Hogan, an outspoken housing advocate, gave a tearful testimony to her formerly homeless mother, who died in 2024.
“You can’t always house your own mother,” said Hogan, executive director of Welcome Home, a coalition of homeless service providers, giving voice to the helplessness felt by many relatives of people who fall into homelessness.
Living outside is lethal. One person a day died on Portland’s streets, on average, in 2024. That’s six times the death rate of Portland’s non-homeless population. A slight majority, 58%, died of drug overdoses. Many others died of disease, being struck by vehicles, violence and suicide.
Events like the one in Old Town were held across the country on Dec. 21, designated the Homeless Day of Remembrance, to honor the growing number of people who die without a home in America every day. There were events in Philadelphia, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and in Wichita, Kansas. There were also events throughout Oregon, including in Oregon City and Salem.
In Multnomah County, the homeless death toll has been climbing fairly steadily since 2011, when the county began keeping records. Deaths in 2024 were down from 2023, the peak of the fentanyl crisis, but still higher than 2022. The number of county residents who died while homeless in 2025, along with the cause of their death, won’t be officially known until late next year. But the annual memorial does have one feature Multnomah County’s official Domicile Unknown report lacks: Names.
Some were pretty unorthodox or submitted by people who didn’t know the person’s legal name. There was Big Don from Bud Clark, Harold the Hot Cocoa Lover, Mario from Alberta Street, Sharyl “Dr. Pepper” Braune and Snick.
Small gasps and murmurs could be heard throughout the church as some learned for the first time of a friend’s passing. Many people who are homeless, especially those who spend years living on the street, take new names or are known by nicknames among the people they consider family. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t remembered, said the new mother.
“Everybody is somebody to someone,” she said through her tears.
About 50 people sitting in the pews nodded their understanding, holding battery operated candles aloft and, in many cases, fighting back tears.
And as with nearly all grief, the sadness on Sunday night was mixed with anger.
“We accept these systems,” said Hogan. “But they are not normal.”
She urged any policymakers in the room – there were at least two – to realize that the existing systems for serving homeless people and preventing homelessness were not inevitable. Those systems are choices, she said, that policymakers can change.
Then she told the story of her mother, Kathleen Colleen Elton, an actress, a model and a wild woman who loved life. Elton was homeless for 10 years, “living hard on the streets,” when Hogan was in her 20s. Finally, Elton was connected with a subsidized apartment, where she lived for a decade before dying in 2024.
“So many of our unhoused neighbors we walk by on the street – we don’t know their lives,” Hogan said. “There’s so much talent, so much beauty.”
The names kept coming. Nicole Todd, Randy Hudson, Ruth McCray, Smokey Larson. There was at least one for nearly every letter of the alphabet.
Laquida Landford, executive director of AfroVillage, a nonprofit focused on uplifting Portland’s Black community, told the story of a woman named Sonya Whitfield, who died in her arms in 2022. Whitfield was Black, Landford said, as are a disproportionate number of people who are homeless.
“There’s so many Black folks,” who die while homeless, Landford said. “We have been displaced in this community.”
According to the latest available demographic data on deaths within Portland’s homeless community, Black and Indigenous people died while homeless at a disproportionately high rate. For example, about 8% of Multnomah County residents are Black, but Black people accounted for 12% of deaths among homeless people in 2024. Indigenous people make up 3% of county residents and account for 5% of deaths among homeless residents.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, who did not attend Sunday’s event, has made much of the number of people dying on Portland’s streets each year. To address the problem, he and his team have created more than 1,000 shelter beds, mostly in new, overnight-only shelters in churches and other empty buildings across the city. Some of those beds are mattresses on a twin metal frame, while others are mats on the floor.
Many at Sunday’s memorial did not see the shelters as a solution.
Barbie Weber, co-executive director of Ground Source, a nonprofit that employs homeless and recently homeless people to keep Portland’s city streets clean, said the better society can do taking care of its most vulnerable members, the better it will be as a whole.
Taking a direct dig at the new shelters, Weber said that to her, caring doesn’t mean providing “a mat on a floor in a room full of people.”
Her hope, she said, was that the group before her would some day gather, not to memorialize those lost, but to celebrate the winter solstice.
Later, Weber said she’d also lost her son, James Robert Tudor, to the streets a few years ago. He was in his 30s and living in Arizona. For months before her boy died, she wasn’t able to reach him and didn’t know if he was alive.
“It’s the not knowing” that’s the worst, she said. But when he died, “I was lucky. They found me quickly on Facebook.”
The complete list read at the memorial service Sunday night follows. It was compiled via a Google survey distributed by Central City Concern, Ground Score Association, Hygiene4All, Multnomah County, PDX Saints Love, Rose Haven, Sisters of the Road, Street Books, Street Roots, The Everly Project, Wapato Island Farm and the Welcome Home Coalition.
If you have any memories or photos of these people you’d like to share with the newspaper, please email lmhughes@oregonian.com.
Aaron Tappley
Adam
Adrian Williams
Aelita Walker
Alex Bowers
Anthony Moss
Antonio Garcia
Arrow Quill
Becky Boyce
Big Don from Bud Clark
Big Ray from Southeast
Billy C
Brandon Coleman
Brent Moore
Brian Burlingame
Brian Keith Mellott Jr.
Brian Kerley
Carol Horner
Carry Smith
Cely
Charles Sorrells
Chip Malachowski
Clarence Smith
Courtney
Curt
Daniel
Dave Paul Collins
Debbie Johnson
Diamond
Don Edney
Duane Larsen
Dusti Gray
Erin
Frosty
Gary
Harold the Hot Cocoa Lover
Holly
Jaycob Lambson
Jeffery Chase Owen
Jeremy Hofman
Jessica Bowers
John Fucciolo
Johnny Boyd
Jordan
Josh Aelita
Joshua Page
Joyce
Karen Colbath
Karen Heid
Kathy
Keely White
Kevin Drew
Lenny
Lisa McCloud
Lopakalee “Diamond”
Luke Kagey
Mama Bambi
Mario from Alberta Street
Martin Naugle
Mary Samson
Megan Kovack
Michael J Johnson
Monyell Hedgmon
Mr. Whiskers
Mykaiel Garner
Nataly Johnson
Nicole Todd
Ocean
Paul
Rachel
Ramsey
Randy Hudson
Randy Mitchell
Reese
Richard Lee Bowers
Richard Rowe
Robert Jiminez
Romon
Ronin
Ruth McCray
Samuel
Sandy
Scott
Sharyl “Dr. Pepper” Braune
Smiley aka Cornell Clemons
Smokey Larsen
Snick
Star H.
September Stormm
Steve Peters
Steven aka Vash
Tammy Sue from Dignity Village
Tennessee aka Jason Garry
Terrence
Tiffany
Tyler Fero
Vickie
Vince
William
Wynell “Lemmie” Warren
Zack Harris
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