St. Petersburg mayor declares Homeless Persons Memorial Day to honor lives of unhoused people

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch declared Dec. 23 Homeless Persons Memorial Day.

Welch presented the proclamation on Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Church.

The church was hosting a funeral to commemorate the 117 people who died this year in Pinellas County who were either homeless or did not have access to adequate housing.

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"Every single one of these 117 people have family, have friends that miss them. And for a lot of these folks, they didn’t have to die. If we took care of our unhoused people the same way we take care of billionaires and corporations, this list of 117 might’ve been a lot shorter," said Rev. Ben Atherton-Zeman.

On any given night, there are nearly 31,000 people experiencing life on the streets in our state; the third highest of any state. The Homelessness Continuums of Care does a count each year, and that's nearly 3% higher than it was in 2022.

"There was not a place to commemorate the lives of folks who are unhoused because sometimes they don’t get a funeral, they don’t get a memorial service. We wanted to provide that place. We wanted to honor the lives of these folks who have passed, even if no one else was doing so," shared Rev. Atherton-Zeman.