In file photo above, Wendy Wiglesworth, led a tribute for unhoused friends who had died in 2021 and 2022.
The Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner’s Office sent Our Town Reno a tragic spreadsheet this week documenting 77 deaths of people without a fixed address in 2024.
The cause of deaths ranged from a 55-year-old man dying of hypothermia in January in Sparks, a 38-year-old man dying of environmental heat stress in July in Reno, to four people killed after being hit by vehicles and one by a motorcycle.
The most cited cause was acute fentanyl and methamphetamine intoxication, overdose from fentanyl with other drugs or alcohol, as well as multiple deaths from pneumonia, sepsis, hangings, stab wounds, and chronic alcoholism.
Ages ranged from several 22-year-olds to two 74-year-olds. We counted 14 women on the list.
Deaths recorded since late November are still pending investigations as to cause of death.
If this is the total list, including at shelters, it would mean this tragic toll has finally reversed an eight year consecutive climb, with 96 recorded unhoused deaths in 2022 and 136 in 2023. The number was 54 in 2021, with each previous year dating back to 2016 lower and lower.
Our Town Reno reporting, January 2025