Another 15 people died “without fixed abode” in June, 2026. Their names were:
David MANGRUM who died on June 1st in Garden Grove
Mary Ann WHITE-CALHOUN who died on June 3rd in Newport Beach
Nathan KELLY who died on June 3rd in Costa Mesa
Michael SMITH who died on June 8th in Trabuco Canyon
John WEBB who died on June 8th in Cypress
Susan ELAM who died on June 8th in Newport Beach
Luis LOPEZ who died on June 10th in Fullerton
Jessica PFEIFER who died on June 10th in Santa Ana
Brian HILL who died on June 12th in Santa Ana
Jimmy NGUYEN who died on June 13th in Westminster
Douglas FARRELL JR. who died on June 13th in Costa Mesa
Travis WILMETH who died on June 21st in Santa Ana
Jason FLINK who died on June 23rd in Santa Ana
David MARIN JR. who died on June 24th in Fullerton
Kennedy CORTEZ who died on June 26th in Santa Ana
In the previous month, May’s total of 37 was the highest monthly total since January, 2024, and May total since 2023; June’s number was the lowest monthly total since July 2019 (pre-Covid). What is going on? Well, we won’t know for a number of months. Perhaps both numbers were statistical flukes. Perhaps the low June number was the result the County and its constituent cities responding to the unexpectedly high May number. We will see in the coming months.
Other developments to report are generally good. In late May, the County released the 2026 Point in Time Count taken in January. It reported a 13.7% decrease in overall homelessness in Orange County, and a 26.6% decrease in the number of unsheltered people in the country. As OCBOS Chair Doug Chafee noted, “while this year’s results are encouraging, there remains a great deal of work to do to help prevent homelessness and provide coordinated care for those who are already homeless.” By the 2026 PIT Count, a total of 6,321 people remain experiencing homelessness in OC, and of those, 3,065 remain unsheltered, sleeping on the County’s streets.
Further, since taking on my new job with Paul Leon’s four-year-old National Healthcare and Housing Advisors (NHHA), which is headquartered in Santa Ana and operates three recuperative care facilities in the State – in Long Beach, Sacramento and the Imperial Valley — I have other good news to report.
I’ve visited two of these facilities, the ones in Long Beach and Sacramento, and while admittedly these facilities provide services targeted toward unhoused who are seniors or suffer disabilities, truly a lot in these facilities is being done right:
The facilities are spacious, each offering, in addition to sleeping quarters, several community rooms with comfortable lounge furniture and wide-screen televisions. There are also spacious outdoor spaces. Residents can bring at least a pet and are free to come and go during the day. Additionally, shuttles are offered to those who wish.
However, since it has been quite hot outside these days and it’s certainly more comfortable inside, most choose to stay home.
The facilities offer medical staff, along with case workers and housing navigators.
Finally, since even with seniors and people suffering disabilities, openings for more permanent or long-term medical housing are scarce, the residents are not being kicked out for “staying too long.” Instead, it is clear that people are being allowed to stay, that the case managers and navigators make every effort to keep people at the facilities for as long as it takes to transition them to an appropriate next step.
And the results are both clear and obvious – lots of generally happy and increasingly relaxed, recovering residents.
For years, I’ve been telling people that pretty much all of us would find ourselves severely distressed and incoherent after even one or two nights of sleeping on the streets and left baking, unwashed in dirty clothes, in the sun during the day.
Now I can say that I’ve seen the opposite as well: People who only a week before had been sleeping on the streets, now having slept in a bed, wearing laundered clothes, having been able to shower, eat sitting at a table, and being able to relax in front of a tv or play chess or backgammon, sitting again at a table in a garden, can return to being “normal” … just like everybody else.
Yes, numerous residents in both facilities have told me that they are struggling with and being treated for alcohol and other addictions. I recently ate dinner with one resident who at the end of the dinner, shared with me of their years-long struggle with heroin addiction, and I can honestly say that I had no idea… I never would have guessed.
I find this to be incredibly good news. Just like a plant left unwatered to bake in the sun dries out and eventually dies, while giving that plant water, even quite late, revives it, people too can be revived.
Give people space, give people time, give people care, and people can come back. I’ve now seen it with my own eyes. Thanks be to God.
Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM
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