Using and Reporting on Homeless Death Count Data
We are excited by your interest in engaging with others on this important issue. To ensure accuracy, the numbers of deaths among people experiencing homelessness across cities or counties on this website should not be compared. Also, the count data should not be considered a total count of all homeless deaths in the United States.
Count data are not comparable across jurisdictions for many reasons. Each city and county count is compiled by a different organization. Each organization uses a different definition of homelessness and a different methodology to calculate the number of deaths among people experiencing homelessness. Some counts are recorded by Medical Examiners Offices, Coroners, and Sheriff’s Departments, while other counts are recorded by advocacy groups, community organizations, and places of worship. For example, the death count data for King County, WA, are provided by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office. They investigate less than 20 percent of all King County deaths and only investigate cases that meet specific criteria defined by state statute. The death of a person experiencing homelessness who has a healthcare provider with sufficient knowledge to certify the cause of death would not be investigated by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office and therefore would not be included in the count. In contrast, many counts in smaller cities and counties are carried out by homeless advocacy groups or nonprofit organizations. Their frequent contact with people experiencing homelessness and connections with other community members may mean they have better knowledge of the number of people who have died. However, their definition of homelessness may include people who may have been housed recently but spent most of the last year experiencing homelessness.
The death counts do not include a standardized denominator indicating the number of people experiencing homelessness in each city or county. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that the likelihood of death among the homeless population in one city or county is higher or lower than in any other county. For example, though more than 1,000 people experiencing homelessness died in Los Angeles County, by far the highest number of deaths in any single city or county, LA County has the largest homeless population in the country. Without data on the number of people experiencing homelessness in each county, it cannot be concluded that the likelihood of death among the homeless population in LA County is higher than in other counties.
Data are not available for the vast majority of cities and counties in the United States. Therefore, the count data does not represent a count of all homeless deaths in the United States. Entities that report data are providing important information to the public on the scale of the homelessness crisis and its consequences. Every county and city should be encouraged to report data to truly understand the scale of the problem.
Please note that while we have done our best to ensure the data we list on this website are accurate, error and inaccuracies inevitably slip through. If you see an error, please contact us.