How many people die homeless in New Mexico? The answer is hard to pin down

Every December, usually on winter solstice — the longest night of the year — nonprofit Health Care for the Homeless holds a memorial service for people who died while homeless. But getting an accurate count of how many of New Mexico’s homeless die is no easy task.

Health Care for the Homeless, which offers free health care and other services, is working with the state Office of the Medical Investigator and the Department of Health to get a better picture. They hope the report they create will help prevent future deaths and pressure lawmakers to address homelessness.

Similar death review studies have looked at pedestrian fatalities or intimate partner violence. But this will be the first formal report done on homeless mortality in New Mexico, according to Rachel Biggs, Health Care for the Homeless chief strategy officer.

The preliminary data has identified 650 deaths from 2018 to 2023, although more cases have been flagged and still need to be investigated before the study is complete.

“If we had a natural disaster and 100 people died, people would be responding in force, right? But we’re having hundreds of people die a year due to homelessness, and we’re not getting that same kind of emergency response and resources dedicated to the problem,” Biggs said.

More people are dying

Although the report is not complete, there already is a clear trend from 2018 through 2023 of more people dying homeless in New Mexico. It’s difficult to attribute that trend to one cause or another, Biggs said. Along with homeless deaths, homelessness has increased, as have overdose deaths.

About 30% of the deaths investigated so far are overdoses, while in the preliminary data, cardiovascular deaths are the second most common.

Chronic health conditions are very common among people who are homeless, according to Biggs. Health Care for the Homeless most regularly treats diabetes, hypertension and heart disease — all serious chronic health issues.

“If you’re living on the street, you’re not going to come in to see us until it really hurts,” Biggs said.

How do you find homeless deaths?

The study relies on death reports collected by the Office of the Medical Investigator, which investigates unattended suspicious deaths across the state.

Location of death is an important clue. Deaths in parking lots, an encampment, in a homeless shelter or at a motel could indicate that someone was homeless, Biggs said. Then there are clues within the field investigation notes that can help researchers identify that the person was homeless.

Researchers examine data for the manner and cause of death, demographic details like race and ethnicity, and the location to look for trends.

Preliminary data suggests that “women are dying younger than men,” Biggs said, “which is interesting because that’s the reverse of the general population.”

What will the data do?

The point of studying homeless mortality is to figure out how to prevent deaths, according to Biggs.

Some other parts of the country like California have studied homeless mortality for decades, and some states are considering having housing status included on death records to get a better picture of homeless deaths.

The report will be used to recommend policy ideas. One of the common policy recommendations from other studies is abundant housing, but there are also common policy recommendations for substance use disorder treatment, harm reduction, culturally appropriate services and integrated health care, Biggs said.

At the clinic level, Health Care for the Homeless will use the report to address trends. It will look at locations of overdose deaths to find clusters and then target outreach in those areas — certain motels, for example, if the report turns up a cluster of deaths at some of them. If certain types of health conditions are leading to more deaths, the nonprofit can also focus more resources on treating those issues.

“It really can help us allocate our resources in a much more fine-grained way,” Biggs said.