For the past nine years, the Longest Night of the Year has remembered the unhoused individuals who died in Calgary—and for some, serves as the only memorial service they will receive.

Nigel Kirk, the founder of the annual service, said recognition for those who have passed has increased with more agencies, and more groups working to provide memorial services.

So, too, have the places where community members can grieve year round, like the Permanent Homeless Memorial on 13 Avenue SE or at Potter’s Field at Union Cemetery.

“Those are places that people I think can go to grieve anytime, but also it’s important to be able to have that community and night like this allows there to be community, whether it be people from the streets… as well as service workers, family members, any anybody who’s had someone who’s from the streets touch their lives,” said Kirk.

“This gives them that community a place to to grieve and be together.”

This year saw a sharp uptick in the number of names read during the service—436, up from a staggering 242 in 2022, which saw a trio of names added to that service during the evening.

Kirk said although the number of deaths was indicative of a crisis in homelessness, events like the Longest Night of the Year weren’t meant to be political and to point fingers.

“I don’t think this is a night for discussing politics,” he said.

“We don’t even need to involve politicians in it, but we as Calgarians need to do something about it. We all as individuals have a responsibility with the decisions we make in our everyday lives.”

The importance of a Calgary memorial service was critical, said Patricia Jones, CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation.

“It’s important for the city of Calgary to understand that we had over 400 people who didn’t have a home lose their life. They had people who loved them, even people who might have been their street family, but their regular families as well,” she said.

“Often people who are living on the street still have connection to the people that are in their lives that are housed as well. It’s important that we don’t forget.”

Kirk said that events like the Longest Night of the Year are among the few times that the different persons in a unhoused individuals’ life can come together.

“These are our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and even in terms of the streets, whether we think of the biological family or not. The homeless community forms its own family. So these are also street brothers, street sisters, street mothers, street fathers,” he said.

“This gives an opportunity for both biological and street family to come together and grieve and mourn, which I think is an important part of being human.”

A full live-stream of the ceremony, including a reading of the names of all of the individuals who died, is available at www.longestnightyyc.com.

Long-standing crisis

Kirk spoke about the 1987 United Nations Year of Shelter for the Homeless, which at the time declared a crisis in Canada when 100 homeless individuals died across the entire nation.

Now, he said, that number has been far outstripped and services have been regular occurrences—sometimes even monthly—in some cities.

“In Toronto, numbers are so bad that they do memorial services monthly there. Edmonton is not much better than Vancouver, and Victoria isn’t any better. Winnipeg, not much better. So I think that that says a lot that this is that it’s hit a crisis level,” Kirk said.

The increasing numbers of unhoused individuals losing their lives is an indication of multiple systemic problems that unhoused people face, said Jones.

“We do know that there’s a drug issue. We have an opioid poisoning. We have staff at our shelter partner sites, who are between 20 and 30, working with people and bringing people back with drug overdoses daily,” she said.

“We also know that people who live on the street don’t get to the doctor often often have chronic health health issues like COPD, they have nutritional deficiencies, they have diabetes. Living outside is hard on your health. Extremely hard on your health.”

Other issues, like the risk of encampment fires and violence, were also contributing causes to the increased number of deaths this year.

During the past 90 days, there have been about 400 different encampments in the city—and during the winter the Calgary Homeless Foundation puts a greater emphasis on housing placement and shuttle services to shelters and warming centres.

The permanent answer said Jones is housing.

“If there was enough housing with the supports provided, people wouldn’t need to sleep in a shelter. That’s what we’re focused on and supporting, moving forward,” Jones said.

“Somebody experiencing homelessness is housed every single day. I think we forget that part of the story. We have housed many, many, many, many people experiencing homelessness.”