On the longest night, we remember everyone we've lost due to homelessness this year.

On the longest night, we remember everyone we've lost due to homelessness this year. As COVID-19 devastates communities across the globe, our unhoused neighbors' lives have also been severely impacted.

With most indoor social services shut down, along with overrun medical clinics, people living on the streets are dying there too. According to AZCentral, 500 unhoused people died in the first 9 months of 2020 in the Metro Phoenix area and nearly all of them were found under freeways, in dry river bottoms, in tents, a porta-potty, and on sidewalks.

Most of their deaths were preventable. Nearly all of them were caused or expedited by the conditions in which they lived such as overdoses, heatstroke, malnutrition. treatable illnesses, and vehicle collisions. Now that Winter is here, with COVID-19 at its worst point going into 2021, hundreds more of these deaths are likely to occur.

Tonight we mourn and grieve for these lives lost, take space to reflect, and work toward a future where no life is lived or lost due to homelessness.