What happens when someone experiencing homelessness dies in Central Oregon?

The answer is often shrouded in mystery. But for the past four years, a dignified ceremony to remember the people who died while homeless throughout the year has been a certainty.

The Longest Night Vigil, a 33-year nationwide tradition that coincides with Homeless Persons’ Remembrance Day, will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday at Bend’s Drake Park. It will memorialize the people who have died in 2023 while homeless in Central Oregon, which encompasses Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties and the Warm Springs Reservation.

“At these events each year, we remember those who have died and we strengthen our resolve to work for a world where no life is lived or lost in homelessness,” a press release from the Homeless Leadership Coalition said. “We state clearly, together with others in scores of communities across our nation, that no person should die for lack of housing.”

The event is organized each year by the coalition, the federally recognized continuum of care providers for the region. The coalition estimated that 16 people died thus far in 2023 while homeless. That number comes from an Oregon Health Authority database that began tracking estimates for deaths of homeless people in 2022, said Donna Burklo, one of the vigil’s organizers and the executive director of the Bend nonprofit Family Kitchen.

Burklo told The Bulletin the total is likely closer to 25 people.

A similar event with the same purpose will take place Thursday morning in Redmond at 8 a.m. at the Bethlehem Inn.