Erasing the Homeless on the Census by Santa Cruz County, CA- with Keith McHenry of Food Not Bombs

"In the years past when the Homeless Person's Healthcare Project provided us with the names, they provided us with the first name, the last name, and the age of the person when they passed away. So you could tell who the people were and it was much more dignified.

Now, the county took over the project from the Homeless Person's Healthcare Project and they decided that they would no longer use the last name or provide the age they were at time of death. We do know that a number of people who passed away, they're not on this list. Who were homeless people who died outside, they're not on the list. It seems to be super undignified too. There no real reason to do this.

What the county said was, 'we can't use the last names because of HIPPA.' But these people have passed away. Had they sent me this list with no last names before 4:00 on Friday, I could have gone to the coroner's office and filled in the last names so we would actually know who these people are. It's very very unfortunate that they have done this and eliminated our ability to know who these people are.

To read the names today seems really crazy because all it is, is a bunch of first names that are mostly very common and it could be anybody. So this is like a tragedy.

It's an erasing of the homeless intentionally by the county of Santa Cruz! I suspect, although I didn't get confirmation of this from Homeless Person's Healthcare Project, but I believe that the county took the project away from the Homeless Person's Healthcare Project to minimize the deaths. So the amount of deaths is also substantially less on their list of first names than is probably the case.

I've had several people contact me who have read the list and tell me that the names of their friends who were homeless, who died outside, are not on the list, not even their first name. Because they actually had more unusual names, which could have been identified on the list.

There was another list that the county provided which was over twice as long as the list of people who passed away outside of people who passed away in housing. My assumption is that they got housing. I don't know how long those people had housing before they died.

I want to say that when my brother and my sister-in-law died, they died in a house. And that meant a lot to me because they had spent 25 years living outside and they finally got into housing and they got to live in housing for almost 5 years before they passed away.

Even though there's probably a nefarious reason why the list of people who died housed is twice as long and it's even being published, and that's because it's being published by the county and the names are being provided to us by housing for health and by the the county itself, by Housing Matters.

It's very important for them to let people know that they get some people into housing. I can understand their desire to promote that. They didn't offer those people's last names either or their age of death either, nor even the details of how they finally got housing. Something that would be really really valuable because we all hope people get housing.

A lot of these people may have only been in the housing for a week before they passed away. Maybe they died in housing being the Dominican Hospital, or long-term care, or some things of that nature.

Like Sheree when she died. She had been homeless for years and she got captured by the county and forced into a mental health system. Then when she was released after, I believe 6 months, she went cold turkey on the psych meds and died of a heart attack within a week of being freed from the mental health system.

So, she would technically have died inside even though she'd been inside either a mental facility against her wishes or in this apartment for one week before she passed away.

We definitely are missing a lot of people and definitely preferable to die inside.

Joe died inside. He was very appreciative of us helping him get housing. He was our security person, but I do believe he died in the last year and not this year. Yeah. Joe Pace.

When I go through to look for photos, for instance when trying to do pictures of Joy when she died. I go through the whole reel that you have. There is Ricky and, and Chief making fun over here and they pass. That's like it's a whole photo roll of friends of ours from the street who we have such fond memories when you see them, but it is very sad to know that they did not make it." - Keith McHenry, Food Not Bombs, Santa Cruz

Across Town Clock
Santa Cruz, CA
December 21, 2025