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A record number of homeless people died in King County in 2017

By Scott Greenstone, The Seattle Times
Published: March 9, 2018, 10:09am

Throughout 2017, advocates for homeless people monitored the rising list of people dying without homes. By April, King County appeared likely to have more deaths than the previous year; by September, the count passed the previous year’s total, and by November, it exceeded the previous record set in 2006.

But in a new report issued this week, the King County Medical Examiner tragically capped the year with an even higher number of deaths: 169. That is 32 more than last year, and more than double the number of deaths six years ago.

In the comprehensive report, the medical examiner also analyzed all the homeless deaths they identified over the last six years, and their report sheds insight into where, how and which people die without a home in King County.

Since 2012, 697 people whom the medical examiner presumes were homeless have died in King County. That number — and the 2017 total — are higher than previously reported because the medical examiner re-examined their death records for the last six years and found previously uncounted deaths of people who are presumed to have been homeless.

The medical examiner insists that this is actually a fraction of all homeless deaths, since it only includes deaths where the person was presumed homeless and didn’t die of natural causes. The medical examiner defines “presumed homeless person” as someone who didn’t have permanent housing, and determines this from where and how they died, and sometimes testimony from next of kin.

Around half of the deaths happened outdoors; 34 percent were in parks or uninhabited areas outside, 10 percent in cars or garages, and 4 percent in encampments or abandoned sites. For those who died inside, the most common location was at a health-care facility. Only 5 percent died in shelters or social-service agencies.

Downtown and Central Seattle was the site of more deaths than anywhere else — more than a quarter of homeless deaths countywide. Beacon Hill/Southeast Seattle and Shoreline/North Seattle each had 10 percent of the deaths.

Black and Native American people had a significantly higher proportion of deaths in the homeless population the medical examiner saw. In 2016, African Americans accounted for only 6 percent of King County deaths but 14 percent of the deaths of homeless people; Native Americans accounted for only 1 percent of all deaths in King County but 8 percent of homeless deaths.

Drugs and alcohol caused nearly one-third of deaths over this six-year period. Opioids like heroin caused the most drug-overdose deaths, but deaths from methamphetamine quadrupled from 2012 to 2017. More than a third died of natural causes, such as heart disease.

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