Fentanyl drove the biggest spike in Multnomah county deaths, according to the health department
At least 456 people experiencing homelessness died in 2023, according to an annual report from the Multnomah County Health Department published today.
That's an increase of more than 100 deaths from the previous year In 2022, the county's records included 315 deaths among people who were homeless.
It's also the highest number of deaths in any year since the county began its analysis in 2011.
The county health department is attributing the surge in deaths to the spread of fentanyl in the drug supply, which it says peaked in 2023.
Unintentional overdose deaths in 2023 overall climbed to 282 people, more than double the number of overdoses reported among homeless people in 2022.
The majority of overdoses were due to fentanyl alone, or in combination with methamphetamine. Fentanyl contributed to 89% of overdose deaths in 2023. Methamphetamine was a factor in 81% of the deaths.
Surging overdoses and visible distress of people living on the streets in Oregon, and particularly in Portland, has triggered policy change. In 2024, the state ended its experiment with drug decriminalization, which voters approved in 2020. The new law recriminalizing the use of small amounts of drugs went into effect Sept. 1.
The health department also calculated estimates of how much more likely people who don't have a stable home are to die of various causes, compared to the general population in Multnomah county.
According to their estimates, the risk of death for people who are homeless was eight times higher for all causes of death, 58 times higher for transportation-related deaths, 51 times higher for any drug overdose and 18 times higher for assault and suicide, the health department found.
Those risk calculations are rough estimates, due to the challenge of accurately counting how many people are homeless each year. The county public health department used the 2023 Point in Time Count tally, counted on Jan 24, 2023, for its estimate of the total population that's not stably housed, 6,297 people total.
The average age of death was 46, more than 30 years younger than the average U.S. life expectancy the year before.