Death of the homeless

Public Health Insider - For people experiencing homelessness in King County [Washington], 72 percent die in unfortunate public places, ranging from crawl spaces under buildings, to parked cars, to public parks.

In 2017, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office investigated the deaths of 169 people who were homeless at the time. That’s an increase of 32 deaths compared to the previous year — and more than double the number of deaths from six years ago, according to a new report from the MEO.

The increase in deaths parallels an overall increase in the estimated number of people living unsheltered in King County. Approximately half of the deaths occurred outdoors.

• Among the top killers are drugs and alcohol — together causing 30 percent of the deaths over this six-year period. 
• While opioids (including heroin) caused the most drug-related deaths, the biggest increases have been due to methamphetamine.

Those drug-related deaths have hit especially hard in younger adults who are experiencing homelessness. In this group (age 25-44) — when death is nearly always premature — those who are homeless are far more likely to die than in the general population.

Additionally, “natural causes” account for 37 percent of deaths. These are also the most common killers in the overall population — but they become fatal at younger ages for people with unstable housing. It can be especially challenging for someone to manage an ongoing, chronic condition, such as heart disease when they have no regular home.

This new analysis of deaths occurring in the homeless community reflects a deep dive into death records, to identify people who died while homeless but may not have been counted as such initially. The number of deaths counted is 20 percent higher than previous reports on presumed homeless persons.