An unofficial count shows more than 250 Austinites living outdoors died over the last year.
Advocates and residents gathered Sunday morning to remember those lost, reading all 256 names during a memorial ceremony on the shores of Lady Bird Lake.
It's the 31st year of the vigil, organized by House the Homeless and Mobile Loaves and Fishes, two longtime nonprofits helping people get off the street. Participants read names under an oak tree planted at the first ceremony, placing stones for each person under the tree after their names were read.
Alan Graham, founder and CEO of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, told the crowd of roughly two dozen that he believes the high number of deaths is preventable, and that he hopes fewer names will be read at future vigils.
"This memorial tree will never ever go away. We'll be doing this at 62 years, 31 years from now," he said. "But hopefully, when we read those names in 31 years, we're going to read 26 names because we've made a difference here instead of 256 names, and that will be because of the people that are standing here today."
Homelessness is an issue that's become a political football in Austin — especially in recent years. Former Mayor Steve Adler and his administration tried to decriminalize homelessness-related behavior in 2019.
City Council undid laws banning people from sitting, camping or panhandling in public, but two years later, voters roundly reinstated those bans.
Adler said Sunday, as he has previously, that he respects the will of Austin voters, but that he believed the controversy surrounding the issue had a silver lining: It compelled people of all stripes to address the issue head-on.
"I take hope in the fact that over these last eight years, there's no one in our city at this point that doesn't see the challenge," he said. "The challenge we have now is for everyone to be able to see those without homes in our community as people, and that's what this celebration has always been about to me."
Last year, the city saw a record number of deaths among Austin's homeless population; that death toll broke a previous record set the year before.
The overall trend of deaths among Austinites experiencing homelessness has gone up in recent years, as city leaders struggle to create affordable, available housing amid a white-hot real estate market and continual population growth.
