Thirty more people died “without fixed abode” in Orange County in December. Their names are:
Andrei SIDENKOV who died on December 1st in Santa Ana
Noe RODRIGUEZ MARTINEZ who died on December 1st in Santa Ana
Charles MARKELL who died on December 2nd in Huntington Beach
Oleh BOYKO who died on December 3rd in Westminster
Leigh GUTTERIDGE who died on December 5th in Fullerton
Cheryl GACKOWSKI who died on December 6th in Fountain Valley
Edward HAUGEN who died on December 7th in Orange
Kevin BICKFORD who died on December 8th in La Palma
Trevor WALD who died on December 9th in Costa Mesa
Clifford ROGERS who died on December 9th in Santa Ana
Gasiel GONZALEZ who died on December 9th in Anaheim
Cassandra MORRIS who died on December 9th in Fullerton
Tessa ARIANO who died on December 11th in Costa Mesa
Richard BIHNER who died on December 12th in Garden Grove
Arlene BROWN who died on December 13th in San Juan Capistrano
Tyler XLANDER who died on December 13th in Santa Ana
Michael KINSLEY who died on December 14th in Laguna Woods
Reginald SULLIVAN who died on December 14th in Fullerton
Juventino MARTINEZ who died on December 15th in Santa Ana
Cesar DE GUZMAN who died on December 16th in Huntington Beach
August CHRISTIE who died on December 17th in Huntington Beach
Steven ERICKSON who died on December 17th in Garden Grove
Scott YARD who died on December 17th in Mission Viejo
Patrick BUSCH who died on December 17th in Mission Viejo
Kevin HUNTER who died on December 19th in Anaheim
John HAMMES who died on December 23rd in Fountain Valley
Rafael FELIX who died on December 24th in Orange
Gerardo GRIMALDO who died on December 26th in Santa Ana
Sharon FREDERICK who died on December 28th in Anaheim
Idalia CONTRERAS who died on December 30th in Anaheim
For the year, 2024, 375 people died without fixed abode, which is significantly lower than in 2023 and 2022 when 500 and 495 had died, respectfully. However, the number is almost exactly that of 2021 when 376 had died and still far higher than in 2019 when 217 had died. Tabulated data from the OC Coroner’s Office can be found here.
OC finds itself for the second winter in a row with no temporary cold weather shelter offered. So far we have been lucky – if only on the homelessness front – that it hasn’t been a particularly wet winter. Yet, morally one would think this would be seen to be a significant shortfall. What does it say of us, if as a County (as well as its constituent cities) if we have no plan at all available to the weakest among us when it rains?
That said there is some positive news. At least one district in OC, Sarmiento has started a pilot project to provide housing vouchers for homeless families with children for the winter months, if no other shelter is available to them.
I have written about this before that it always shocks me that when we call about a family that has come to us that finds itself sleeping in their vehicle, after spending all its income (most of the parents are still generally working) on hotel rooms, that there are dozens of other families across the county ahead of them awaiting assistance to get into a shelter / temporary housing.
At minimum, the County should be able to provide hotel vouchers for such families to keep them off of the street and give them a fighting chance to save up the money (first, last, security deposit) to get into an apartment again.
Note that Fullerton’s Tri-Parish Homeless Collaborative offers loans to families whose parents can prove that they have sufficient income to maintain living in an apartment if those initial expenses can be covered by the said loan. Cal Optima offers a similar benefit as well.
But we should be able to help our homeless families stay off the streets while they save up the money or go through the paperwork to get said loan to get back into an apartment.
Further, if there are dozens of families with small kids living in this situation in OC, there are HUNDREDS of Seniors who sleep on our streets as well.
There is no reason why members of either of these two groups should be living on our streets at all.
And yes, everybody has a story, and since World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has declared that everybody has a right to affordable housing, something that the Catholic Church has maintained since the wartime addresses of Pius XII and confirmed again by Saint John XXIII in the 1960s.
Still where our County’s and its constituent cities’ failure is most abhorrent is when we run into families with kids and Seniors with sometimes even unplugged breathing machines being asked to stop and wait in line. We must do better than that.
Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM, Pastor St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church, Fullerton.
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