12/24/2025
Chicoans gather in rain and wind to remember homeless people who died this year
"Vic Estrada holds a list containing names of homeless people who died in 2025 during a candlelight vigil honoring National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day at the "Our Hands" sculpture Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025 in Chico, California. (Molly Myers/Enterprise-Record)
Author
By Molly Myers | mmyers@chicoer.com
PUBLISHED: December 23, 2025 at 4:30 AM PST
CHICO — Shielded from the rain beneath two pop-up canopies at the “Our Hands” statue, some 15 people gathered Sunday to honor homeless people who died in the past year.
“I know it’s really bad weather, but as we know, this is also what our homeless siblings live in all the time,” said organizer Mary Kay Benson, who works with Chico Shelter for All.
Attendees were each handed electric candles and lists of the names of those who died. In unison, the group read each of the names out loud. NorCal Resist started the Homeless Persons’ Memorial in Chico six years ago, according to Benson. In more recent years Chico Shelter for All and the North State Shelter Team have played a bigger role in hosting the event.
Grace Aita speaks about her friends who she said died without homes during a candlelight vigil honoring National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day at the "Our Hands" sculpture Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025 in Chico, California. (Molly Myers/Enterprise-Record)
Benson describes herself as “the unofficial keeper of this list since 2020.” She noted compiling the list and verifying the housing status of each person is challenging. This year’s list included 17 names along with two anonymous entries, one for a woman and one for a man. The list notes that advocates are working to identify the two unnamed people and verify they were homeless.
To compile the names, Benson said she and other advocates look through police reports but have to wait for law enforcement officials to notify next of kin which “could take forever or never.” Sometimes people who are aware of the list notify her, she said. Charles Withuhn, president of the North State Shelter Team, said some of the data comes firsthand from working with the homeless community.
“So some of the details are very sketchy, as you can see, but we do the best we can,” Benson said. “And that’s why we really want the city to start crafting these (lists), so that we actually can have a measurable thing that we can improve on.”
Before the name reading, Withuhn spoke to the crowd about the challenges facing the homeless community in Chico and the work mutual aid groups have done to help.
“If you can hear my voice, my prayer is that you will take a more active role in our community conversation with a letter to the editor and communicating to our elected leaders we need a wider variety of shelter options — proven successful in other towns — in some cases for 10 years,” Withuhn said. “Save taxpayers money and save people’s lives.”
The average number of homeless people who die each year, according to the advocates’ count, is 25. Benson noted this year’s list is incomplete because the year is not yet over.
“One other caveat is we lose a lot of people in December,” she said.
Eli Sabe, who said she’s been homeless for three-and-a-half years, attended the event and said she didn’t recognize many of the names. However, she said this could be because many who live without homes go by “street names.” Looking at the list of names, she said she was struck by how young some of them were.
Combating homelessness, said Sabe, starts with how people are treated.
“Just be kind humans to people,” she said. “It really changes a life. It brings hope — just to look at somebody and acknowledge their existence. Maybe we wouldn’t be off in the park hanging ourselves, or feeling like we couldn’t attend a shelter because of the way we’re treated. So really, it’s a problem of houselessness, but at the same time, it’s a problem of the heart where we’re not tapping into the kindness.”
Sabe said she struggled for many years with addiction and trauma that played a part in her homelessness. God helped her recover, she said, and added that she thinks God should be implemented into homeless care.
“We don’t include him in our solutions, and we’re going to continue to have the same problems until we figure out that God is love,” Sabe said. “And if we don’t put love on our streets, we have nothing except for more names on the list.”
Those who died
The full list provided by Benson includes two unidentified people. In addition, two of the names on the list do not have last names. The full list notes that shelter advocates are working to identify those deaths.
The people with names are as follows:
• Miles Clark, 34
• Daniel Miller, 39
• Jedediah Percifield, 37
• Amanda Rose Easley, 37
• Joshua “KC” Snyder
• Carson “CJ”
• Rocky Eric “Thumper” Shelton, 49
• Jack “Jonn” Dransfield
• Michelle Goodwin
• Gabby Ruperick
• Elijah
• Jamie Lynn Gorman, 43
• Donald Stevens
• James “Jay” Marksberry, 65
• Josh Sharp, late 20s
• Tiffany Bollinger, mid 40s
• Gina Marie Marmol, 61"
Shielded from the rain beneath two pop-up canopies at the “Our Hands” statue, some 15 people gathered Sunday to honor homeless people who died in the past year.
