On a spreadsheet about homeless deaths maintained by the Orange County coroner’s office, a particular word jumps out: “Overdose.”

It shows up repeatedly — 124 times — as the cause of death for the 372 people with “no fixed abode” who died so far this year in Orange County. Of the homeless deaths documented between Jan. 2 and Dec. 10 (a date chosen by the Register to meet deadline) nearly 1 in 3 involved overdoses, making abuse of drugs the leading factor in the homeless death toll of 2021.

It marked the second time in two years the county broke the grim record. During all of last year, 338 people with no fixed abode died in Orange County.

The trend — documented monthly by Father Dennis Kriz, who holds a prayer service at St. Phillip Benizi Church in Fullerton — comes even as cities and others are stepping up their efforts to provide shelter beds, housing vouchers and other programs aimed at helping people get off Orange County streets. Advocates have heightened their calls for more housing and services to address issues such as addiction and mental health disorders.

While many of the homeless die lonely, sometimes forgotten deaths, they all are honored in annual ceremonies to mark National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. The commemoration, set for Tuesday, Dec. 21, always takes place on the first day of winter — typically the harshest of times for people living on the streets — and the longest night of the year.

The largest such ceremony in Orange County, the Homeless Persons’ Inter-Religious Memorial Service, will be held Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove. Each name on the coroner’s “no fixed abode” list, along with other names submitted directly to organizers, will be read aloud, and a candle will be lit in each person’s honor.

Organizers include the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, the Orange County Interfaith Network, Our Father’s Table, and HomeAid Orange County. The service will be live streamed. As in past years, representatives from several different faith communities are expected to  speak.

To Gina Seriel, founder and chief executive of homeless services provider Our Father’s Table, which helps people in south county, it’s important to acknowledge people’s lives, no matter how or where they died.

In each of the five years that a local service has been held for Homeless Persons Memorial Day, Seriel has made it her job to compile the names, adding any last-minute submissions late the night before. The list of names read this year will be double the number read in 2016, the first year of the memorial service at Christ Cathedral.

“It’s just a dignity thing,” Seriel said.

“It may be inconveniencing me, but at the end of the day it’s important to honor that dignity.”

Using in plain sight

The rise in drug-related deaths — often involving methamphetamine or heroin laced with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl — reflects a national trend. Federal data shows more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in a 12-month period that ended in April, up more than 28% from the previous year.

Seriel said she sees it daily in her encounters with homeless people in south county, and she knows it touches every social cohort.

“These overdoses really resonated,” Seriel said. “We’re seeing that throughout the country, in the housed population.”

But drug use in the homeless population, she added, has become more visible.

“I see it more blatantly being used in public, in open spaces, during busy hours of the day,” she said of homeless people ingesting or inhaling hardcore drugs. “The stigma of drug use and hiding it and doing it behind closed doors, or in a secret area, has kind of gone to the wayside.”

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Fentanyl is key to the surge, as people often don’t know that the drug they’re using has been laced with it. That’s true of all drug deaths, regardless of the user’s housing status, and in November it prompted prosecutors in Orange and Riverside counties to announce tough new policies, including possible murder charges, aimed at fentanyl dealers.

This year, fentanyl was at least part of the mix in drugs that contributed to 55 homeless deaths in Orange County. Almost all of the drug overdose deaths are listed as accidents; only five were suicides.

“Heavier drug use is more prevalent,” Seriel said. “Its easier to get. It’s cheaper to make.”

Not all were anonymous

Beyond drug overdoses, homeless people in the county died of natural causes (94), vehicle-related incidents (32), COVID-19 (15) and homicide (9).

Data provided to the Register also showed 20 suicides, including a 27-year-old man named Jaime Mendoza who hung himself from a seatbelt at a Fullerton parking structure on Dec. 10.

Seriel lost her father to suicide. He suffered from bipolar disease, and was not homeless. But she is particularly moved by people in the homeless community who take their own lives.

“It’s very sad to know that these people didn’t have anybody,” Seriel said. “Nobody should die that way.”

Not everyone who died while homeless was unknown or initially unmourned.

Mark Shegiru Oyama, who died on Sept. 11 at age 63, was a fixture for years on Westminster Boulevard in Westminster, his hometown. Oyama stationed himself at the bus stop near a shopping center anchored by a Big Lots store. Some folks called Oyama by the nickname “Samurai,” and he kept the area where he stayed clean. He was respectful to all, refrained from panhandling and would turn down offers of food or money.

The Westminster High graduate died on the steps of Calvary Chapel Pacific Coast, across the street from the bus stop. The cause of Oyama’s death is pending, making him one of 74 homeless people for whom the coroner awaits completion of toxicology tests.

Martin Velazquez, a Westminster resident since 2007, regularly saw Oyama at that bus stop over the course of 10 years, passing him on his way home from work in Huntington Beach. Velazquez said he always intended to stop and talk to Oyama, but was always in a rush to get somewhere else.

“I’d say ‘Next time, next time, next time.’ It kind of really broke my heart. That next time never came.”

So Velazquez, a member of the Reformed Church of Los Angeles based in Lynwood who likes to evangelize and do community work, recently organized a candlelight vigil at the bus stop for Oyama. He was moved by the many comments left about Oyama on a Westminster community Facebook group. According to those posts, Oyama’s life had been altered by drug and alcohol use, and that he stayed where he was raised while family moved away.

About 80 people, most of them strangers to each other, joined Velazquez in his memory the night of Oct. 1. The group included a pastor at Calvary Chapel who unsuccessfully reached out to Oyama.

“We were all people who don’t know each other,” Velazquez said. “We were just residents of Westminster and we came together for one reason, one purpose.

“Don’t miss an opportunity to bless someone,” he added. “Because you never know if the next time will come.”

View Longest Night service

The homeless memorial service at Christ Cathedral can be live streamed in several places:

youtube.com/user/DioceseOrange

vimeo.com/rcbo

mass.christcathedralcalifornia.org

facebook.com/ChristCathedralCA/videos/?ref=page_internal

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