The Longest Night

“Adrian, Angelo, Arthur, Bodie, Carlos, Cary, Chantal.”

A group of over 50 gathered in the courtyard of Our Lady of Guadalupe silently listened to the names of homeless people who died this year.

As Chaplain Joe Dudziak and advocate Nancy McDonald alternated reading the names during the annual memorial service, those assembled recognized each person with a chime and a collective, “We remember them with love.”

“These are people we love and spent time with,” says Tara Ortega in between lighting farolitos with the names of each person memorialized. Ortega, who drove from Las Cruces to attend the event, formerly worked on street outreach team with Youth Shelters and Family Services in Santa Fe.

Ortega tells SFR that in the last five years of their participation in the vigil, they’ve witnessed more “collaboration and collective heart.” Though Ortega notes a unified grief over the increased number of people experiencing homelessness due to the pandemic.

The yearly memorial takes place on the winter solstice “because it’s the shortest day of the year and so it’s also, in many ways, often like the coldest and the hardest to be out,” says Georgia Evans, a development associate with the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.

That was not the case Tuesday afternoon as the temperature hovered well above freezing. Dudziak noted the unseasonably warm afternoon, reminding the group how quickly the temperature drops once the sun goes down.

Evans, one of the vigil’s organizers, says “the main point of the event, obviously, is just to honor and recognize these people that have died while being homeless” and create awareness around the increased vulnerability of this population in Santa Fe during the winter months.

Most years, about 25 homeless people die around the city, explains Evans, but 2021 saw 39 people die while experiencing homelessness.

“There’s definitely been a spike this year,” Evans tells SFR. “What that may be, is kind of up in the air,” but the pandemic has driven those numbers higher.

McDonald tells SFR the memorial started 25 years ago. She’s been involved in the vigil for 18 of them.

“We used to have it behind my office on Early Street and we’d have a bonfire and we’d have refreshments,” says McDonald of memorials past that she hosted at her nonprofit, Santa Fe Community Services, which she still operates, providing social services to the homeless community.

Last year the memorial was significantly reduced to a drive-by service. This time around, it was a much shorter affair than previous vigils.

This year has also been notable for the instances of violence against those experiencing homelessness in Santa Fe. Multiple homicides this year have involved members of the homeless community, centering around the GreenTree Inn. The motel was one of the few in the city that accepted housing vouchers from local nonprofits, providing rooms to those without shelter.

But from Evans’ perspective, these incidents haven’t signaled a noticeable increase in violence among the homeless population.

Evans explains that the majority of the deaths in the homeless community this year stemmed from health issues, “and that, of course, can be largely correlated to being out in the streets or insecure places and having difficult access to health care.”

One notable example of this, McDonald explains, is access to vaccines and COVID-19 tests, both of which, more often than not, rely on patients having internet access to schedule appointments.

McDonald says a significant number of people she works with haven’t received a vaccination, though she points them to websites where they can schedule a shot.

“But that’s easier for me and you than it is for them to get to a computer or phone to make an appointment and go there,” says McDonald.

McDonald explains that since she started organizing this event, in tandem with her nonprofit’s work, many of those she knew in the homeless community have died. Despite the burden McDonald assumes in recognizing and dignifying the grim cycle of loss remembered each year at the vigil, she continues her work supporting some of Santa Fe’s most vulnerable people.

In light of the harsh exposure many without stable housing face during the winter, Evans asks the community to donate sleeping bags and tents to local shelters.