Anchorage has recorded 47 outdoor deaths in 2024

Anchorage has recorded 47 outdoor deaths this year, shy of last year’s cruel peak of 52 deaths but still far above historic averages.

New data from the Anchorage Police Department shows that the record number of deaths in 2023, rather than being an anomaly, may have been the beginning of a persistent rise in outside deaths among Anchorage’s homeless population.

Police define outdoor deaths as an instance when a person dies outside, without a fixed address. Outdoor deaths are an incomplete measure of mortality among unhoused people in Anchorage. They don’t capture instances when a person dies in the hospital or from a vehicle crash, a homicide or inside a shelter, among many other scenarios. Still, they have been considered an important measure of how the city is doing in caring for vulnerable people, and elected officials and policymakers have vowed to reduce such deaths.

The Daily News analyzed brief narratives of each incident provided by the police department. Of the 47 known deaths this year:

• Thirty-five of the people who died were men. Ten were women. The gender of one person was not reported.

• Nearly 40% of the deaths happened during just two months — May and October. Nine people died in May, and nine in October.

• The ages of people who died ranged from 22 to 67.

• In five cases, police mentioned Narcan being administered at the scene. In 23 cases, nearly half, the police narrative mentioned drug paraphernalia found at the site, though it was not clear whether that had anything to do with the person’s death. In nine cases, the police narrative mentioned that alcohol bottles were found at the site. Toxicology reports are not part of the initial information released by police.

• In 36% of the fatal incidents reported, the person was found inside a tent.

In the past, outdoor deaths have reached seasonal peaks in the spring and summer, with the deep winter months recording fewer deaths. Homeless service providers have said that’s due to more people being in shelters and supportive housing during the colder winter months, especially when city low-barrier shelters operated only seasonally.

For unhoused people, May and October are times of transition, said Shawn Hays, the head of Henning Inc., a homeless services provider.

“When our shelter season begins in October ends in May, it’s a lot of coming out of structure, into structure and it’s just the trauma, I think, of just being in flux,” she said. “People know now that they’re going to get in (indoor shelter) when it’s cold and then they know that when once it warms up, they’re going to have to leave again, and they’re going out into instability.”

Geographically, the deaths were concentrated around Midtown Anchorage, especially the Benson Boulevard and Northern Lights Boulevard corridor. Four deaths also occurred in or near Davis Park, the site of a large encampment. One person died at the municipal cold weather shelter on East 56th Avenue, while sitting outside at a picnic table. A person was found dead in the pedestrian overpass at Benson Boulevard and Lois Drive. A person was found in a field near the intersection of the Old Seward Highway and O’Malley Road.

One woman was found near the edge of the Anchorage municipality and far from town — at Mile 6 of the Portage Glacier Highway. Her death was initially considered suspicious but later classified as not suspicious, police said. Without further details from police immediately available, it’s not clear how she got from Anchorage to Portage, more than an hour’s drive away.

In October, two people were found dead in a vehicle which had a propane tank connected to a heating source. It wasn’t clear whether an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning was the cause.

Outdoor death summaries from the police don’t include a cause of death, something determined by the medical examiner. In past years, the medical examiner has listed hypothermia, complications related to chronic alcoholism and drug overdose as the three most common causes of death for people on the outdoor deaths list.

“Those are 47 lives ended,” said David Rittenberg, the director of Adult Homeless Services for Catholic Social Services. “They have families, they are members of our community.”

But the number of those who died is only a final loss, Rittenberg said. He wonders how gaps in the system of care for unhoused people are being expressed before someone’s life ends in a tent or a parking lot.

“Are we seeing increased calls for emergency service? More frostbite? Are we seeing more of the things that would happen prior to someone passing away?” he said.

The people who died included moms and dads, grandparents and sisters. In an obituary for one man, a family remembered how he gave away fish he’d caught, and how he loved to come up with nicknames for people. Another family remembered how their loved one could fix anything mechanical, from a snowmachine to a chain saw. The family of one man described being devastated in a Facebook post announcing his death. “Things weren’t always serene, but we are missing the joy and goodness he brought us on earth,” the family wrote.