Deaths among Phoenix-area homeless on the rise

While Phoenix has had a growing homeless population for some years, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have pushed this vulnerable group to the brink.

Medical experts and Maricopa County’s decedent services department have said they’ve seen an increase in deaths among the indigent population during the past year. While the causes of death are in line with what the general population is experiencing, homeless people have been challenged in new ways since the start of the pandemic.

There were approximately 7,419 people experiencing homelessness in Maricopa County on the night of Jan. 27, 2020 — the most recent point-in-time count for which data is available. It was up from the 6,614 recorded on a single night in 2019. Of them, 49% were in temporary housing or shelters and 51% were unsheltered on the streets.