94 deaths of homeless people highlight lack of care

If you're homeless in King County, you'll likely live about 30 fewer years than other people in the country.

You're also about eight times more likely to commit suicide, compared with U.S. averages. You're about twice as likely to die in an accident. And you have 13 times the chance of being murdered.

That's based on a report on homeless deaths released Monday by Public Health — Seattle & King County, which studied nearly 100 King County residents who died without a home last year.

"It's very disturbing," said Janna Wilson, director of the county's Healthcare for the Homeless Network. "These people have a lot of barriers to early and preventive health care."

In 2005, 94 homeless people died, up 15 percent from 2004 and 22 percent from 2003. And with an average age of 47, they were relatively young compared with the current U.S. life expectancy of 77-½ years.

The numbers are derived only from cases that came before the King County Medical Examiner's Office. Many more homeless people died of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and gastrointestinal illness, while finally under the care of clinics, so the medical examiner didn't investigate, Wilson said.

Wilson said there are no clear explanations for the increases in deaths, from 82 deaths in 2004 and 77 deaths in 2003. But drug and alcohol deaths were a concern. Thirty died of acute intoxication in 2005, compared to 20 in 2004.

"Like previous studies of homeless deaths, the causes ... continue to reflect the harsh realities and risks faced by those who live on the streets and in shelters — chronic health conditions, traumas and the troubling role of alcohol and drugs," the report said.

King County has about 8,000 homeless people. Public Health nurses and substance-abuse experts seek them out in shelters and on the streets to try to steer them toward care at community health clinics and at Harborview Medical Center.

But other factors get in the way, including mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction and a lack of transportation to the clinics, Wilson said.

"They all cause delays in care," she said. "It can be very challenging."

Only about one-third of the King County homeless people who died in 2005 had seen a health-care provider during the year, the report said.

Wilson notes that recent state legislation has been designed to help communities end homelessness. And Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has proposed $3 million in the 2007 city budget for a new initiative against homelessness.

"We hope these new measures will help get the numbers [of deaths] going in the other direction," Wilson said.

Warren King: 206-464-2247 or wking@seattletimes.com