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Clackamas County vigil honors 33 people who died while unhoused, highlights supports and survivor stories
Summary
On the longest night of the year, community members, county staff and service providers in Clackamas County held a candlelight vigil for 33 people who died while unhoused. Speakers urged remembrance, described the stabilizing role of supportive housing and shared first-person accounts of survival and recovery.
On the longest night of the year, residents and service providers gathered at a Clackamas County vigil to remember 33 people who died while unhoused and to call attention to the human cost of the local housing crisis.
"Tonight is the longest night of the year," said Lynn Dressler, who gave an invocation urging attendees to hold the names of those lost "not as statistics, not as problems to be solved, but as human beings worthy of dignity and worthy of remembrance." The program invited attendees to light candles and place roses as names were read aloud.
The event combined communal ritual with personal testimony and service-provider remarks. Lisa Walters, who described herself as having lived experience of homelessness and addiction and who now works at Father's Heart, recounted years of substance use, an…
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