Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day

The National Consumer Advisory Board, the National Coalition for the Homeless, and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council encourage our constituents to organize or take part in Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day events on or around Dec. 21, the first day of winter and the longest night of the year. Learn why we remember this day each year through our HPMD Advocacy Agenda.

At these events each year, we remember those who have died and we strengthen our resolve to work for a world where no life is lived or lost in homelessness. We state clearly, together with others in scores of communities across our nation, that no person should die for lack of housing.

Register your local HPMD Observance and share the names of those lost in your community. 

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Local Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day Events

On the first day of winter and the longest night of the year, people in our communities will die without a home. Each Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day event is unique to its community. The events often include readings of names, candles, prayers, personal remembrances, marches, and moments of silence. They are often held outdoors, sometimes – fittingly – in the bitter cold. These events honor those who have paid the ultimate price for our collective failure to adequately address homelessness and often include calls to address the systemic causes of tragically avoidable deaths. They also call attention to our efforts to collect and document mortality data to better understand the extent to which homelessness kills.

Join the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council to remember and commemorate those who have died. We are grateful to the National Consumer Advisory Board for supporting the planning of this event. Register HERE to attend the 2024 Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day to memorialize and honor the lives lost to homelessness get energized to fight with hope and with fierce determination to prevent and end homelessness.

You may use the HPMD Organizing Manual to plan Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day events, using sample documents and suggestions for addressing policy issues related to homeless deaths. Please use it to borrow ideas from others and to help create a moving and powerful local event.

Honoring Those We Have Lost

Each year, we lose our friends and colleagues to homelessness. In 2019, the National HCH Council interviewed clinicians, administrators, and consumers of homeless health care to create the first national collection of oral histories of people who have died while experiencing homelessness. These stories illuminate the perspectives and personalities of people who have died without housing, their lives and the conditions that led to their deaths to reduce stigma, spotlight barriers to care, and bring attention to the preventable tragedy of homeless deaths.

• Homeless Mortality: The Facts
• Homeless Mortality Toolkit

Additional Resources