210 homeless people who died in Orange County the past year will be remembered at an interfaith service. Here are their names.
Jerome “Jerry” Stephen Clark died last month after a hard life spent mainly on the streets, abusing drugs and alcohol as his addictions overpowered his repeated efforts to turn his life around. Somehow, he made it to 70.
Going alphabetically, Clark’s name is No. 40 on a list of 210 homeless people whose deaths over the past year will be remembered during an interfaith ceremony Thursday, Dec. 21, at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove.
The service is one of several ceremonies in Orange County that will mark National Homeless Person’s Memorial Day.
Clark passed away in a hospital, with someone present to see to his final wishes, unlike many of the other men and women on the list whose bodies were found in the myriad out-of-the-way places they frequented in life: motel rooms, railroad tracks, parking lots, freeway off-ramps, greenbelts and parks, the Santa Ana River Trail, parked vehicles, sidewalks, creek beds, bus stops.
A variety of causes precipitated their deaths: Some perished as victims of crimes or in accidents, having been shot or hit by a car, drowned or burned in a fire; others overdosed or drank themselves to death.
The oldest, 91-year-old Herbert Radd, died of cardiovascular disease in September; the youngest, Cheyanne Carrasco, 18, overdosed on a cocktail of heroin and methamphetamine in May.
The National Coalition for the Homeless began observing the memorial day in 1990, choosing the date of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Now it is marked by ceremonies in communities around the country.
This is the second year for the service at Christ Cathedral. In 2016, there were about 20 fewer names to read — men, women and children. Each had a candle lit in their honor during a ceremony that included representatives of several faith communities.
The 7 p.m. service has the same organizers as last year: the Diocese of Orange, the charitable organizations Our Father’s Table and HomeAid of OC, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Two other gatherings are scheduled during the day: at 10 a.m. outside the county Hall of Administration in the Santa Ana Civic Center and at 3:30 pm at Anaheim Cemetery in Anaheim. Organized by the nonprofit group Hope 4 Restoration and its founder, Tim Houchen, plans for those events call for remarks by several elected officials — state Sens. Josh Newman and John Moorlach and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva.
“Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is important to me because many of those that have died are actually friends of mine from when I was homeless myself,” said Houchen, who continued to advocate for homeless people after settling into supportive housing in Anaheim in 2015.
“Homeless people rarely have any kind of memorial service so it is a way for the homeless community to mourn the loss of friends and loved ones.”
Houchen said a moveable wall featuring the names of 207 homeless people to be honored by Hope 4 Restoration will be present at each gathering. The Civic Center event will finish with a march around the area by the group Housing is a Human Right OC and the “Longest Night” ceremony at Anaheim Cemetery will include an interfaith memorial service and candlelight vigil to read the names of the deceased.
As of Tuesday, Houchen had obtained proclamations recognizing National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day from 18 of the county’s 34 cities. Those proclamations will be displayed at both the Civic Center and Anaheim Cemetery gatherings.
“The events are also a community awareness tool,” Houchen said. “Many people are unfamiliar with the tremendous loss of life associated with being homeless.”
In 2016, the number of homeless people who died in Orange County hit an all-time high of 201, according to a Register review of reports from the Orange County Coroner’s Office. The death rate of homeless people in Orange County, who numbered an estimated 4,500 people in an official count conducted in January, appears to be on a similar pace for 2017.
Of the 210 people who will be acknowledged at the Christ Cathedral service, some died in December 2016, after they could be noted in last year’s memorial service. Then, as now, the bulk of the names to be read were provided by the coroner’s office. But some, like Clark, have been added by people who knew them.
Clark died in a hospital on Nov. 10, where he was taken after coming down with pneumonia while living in a creek bed in San Juan Capistrano. He underwent surgery for gastrointestinal perforation and never woke up, said Gina Seriel, founder and director of Our Father’s Table homeless outreach services in south county, who became a friend to Clark in 2014 and oversaw scattering his ashes at sea.
“It is the hardest thing I have had to do and it is also the biggest honor I have ever been given,” Seriel wrote in a eulogy she delivered at a Dec. 9 private memorial service for the white-bearded Clark, who went by the nickname “Wolfman.” Seriel also described the ups and downs Clark endured during the time she came to know him:
“One transitional program for 12 months, one room for rent for several months, one knee replacement surgery, one recuperative care stay, one room and board stay, one hip replacement surgery, several hospital and numerous doctor appointments, several court dates and homeless court appearances, trips to Social Security office, grocery store shopping, Walmart shopping trips, coffee dates, mass on Sundays, holidays spent together, Bible study, replacing his ID he always lost …
“Always landing back on the streets homeless again because at the end of the day, his addiction was stronger than his will was to stay clean.”
Clark, who called himself the black sheep in a family of 14 children in Dayton, Ohio, first ran away from home at 11, determined to get to California. He didn’t get too far, but made it out here later. He began using heroin at a young age, and also abused alcohol and other drugs.
When he worked, it was doing hard labor, which, along with living a life on the streets, took a toll on his body. The love of his life, a woman named Gwen that he met at the Swallow’s Inn in San Juan Capistrano, left him when he wouldn’t stop doing drugs.
Earlier this year, students from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts finished a 22-minute documentary called “Black Sheep” about Clark as part of the film school’s Community Voices program. The film is being entered in competitions, but was shown a few months ago at a screening Clark attended along with Seriel, whose friendship with Clark also is featured in the film.
The first voice heard in “Black Sheep” is Clark’s. “Addiction,” he says, “is a sorry way to have to live.”
Later on, Seriel, whom Clark called his guardian angel, counters with a hopeful, “Nobody should ever be given up on.”
To those organizing and attending the Homeless Person’s Memorial services, that also means not even in death.
The names of the 210 deceased homeless people in Orange County, CA in 2017 to be read are: David Adams, Sabah Alsaad, Eugenia Alvizures, Eglantine Aprahamian, Donald Arbgast Jr., Dennis Askew, Antonio Avina, Angel Baca, Manuel Barajas, Brett Baranek, James Barnes, Brian Bell, Kole Bigelow, John Birch, Ian Blackley, Ann Bonelli, Dennis Boyle, Stephen Branstetter, Ronald Briggs Jr., Stephen Broadbent, Cynthia Brown, Meghan Brown, Kris Brownell, Timothy Buckley, Garrett Budd, Dan Buller, Jim Byrnes, Shawn Cadavas, Robert Calderon Sr., Robert Carmichael, Cheyanne Carrasco, James Carroll, Lacey Cater, Robert Cavalier, Matthew Chao, Topan Chifron, Mackenzie Christian, James Clark, Jerome Clark, Paul Cockreham, Maurice Cole, Kenneth Comer, Stephen Conway, John Coombs Jr., Mark Cordova, Kenneth Creasy, Colleen Crowley-Andrasek, Gilberto Cruz, Casey Dean, Adam Delariva, David Derevjanik, Charles Dilworth, Ryan Dixon, John Doe, Mathew Doherty, Sean Dolan, Kyle Dunn, Cleland Dye, Rudolph Elias, John Engel, Ernesto Espinoza, Loretta Evans, Christopher Evans, Martin Farish, Ted Feger Jr., Helen Fields, Steven Foltman, Jerimy Frayo, Craig Fritts, Timothy Gaines, Ann Garzon, Paul Goetzen, Mitchell Gohman, Daniel Gonzalez, Jorge Gonzalez, Charles Graff, Michael Graham, Christine Grande, Jami Gravelle, John Greeley, Joel Hagan, Michael Hagemyer, David Haight, Carrie Hallauer, Bruce Hansen, Shannon Hartman, Brian Hayworth, Justin Hazzard, Jeffrey Heath, Kalab Hendrix, John Hensley, David Hicks, Richard Hiltz, Luis Hinojosa, Haro Hogan, Helen Holt-Ennis, David Hopkins, Demareya Horsley, Michael Huizar, Paul Hurst, Tony Hymon, Abderrahim Jabrane, Raymond Jocelyn, Richard Joseph, Justino Juarez, Kevin Kaiser, Gilbert Kennedy, Francis Kerns, Anne King, Thomas Kuehn, Rene Laan, Michael Lackey, Enrique Larios, David Lascoe, Roy Latumeten, Daniel Lawson, Patricia Lee, Krista Lee, Thomas Lee, Albert Lerma, Michelle Leyvas, Raymond Lieber, Jacob Lindsay, Jesus Longoria, Henry Longtin III, Aaron Lybarger, David MacMillan IV, Mark Mandrigues, Kimberly Marcum, Javier Martinez, Jenny Masters, Dennis McCarty, Cheryl McCorkle, Brian Mendez, Wilbur Merino, Yeweinishet Mesfin, Joshua Miles, Michael Miller, Paul Miskin, Francisco Moreno, James Morgan, Sergio Muniz, Sherry Murray, Martin Naponelli, Naudia Negrette, Quy Ngo, John Nguyen, Sadie Nichols, John Nondorf Jr., Randy Norris, Armando Orozco, Frank Page, Charles Painter, Phillip Parcell, Donald Patrick, Lynn Pearson, Alejandro Perez, Neal Petersen, Arnold Pierce, James Prouty, Mark Purdue, Dylan Radcliffe, Herbert Radd, Brianna Raygoza, Ebony Reeves, Galen Ricewood, Cristian Rivera, Gilbert Romero Jr., Andrew Rostron, Leah Ruml, Pedro Sajche Chan, Brian Santos, Leobardo Sauz Torres, Jason Schultz, Woodrow Sexton, David Shappell, Lory Shelit, Steven Shepard, Curtis Shipman, Bhabani Singh, Donna Sklar, Almon Smith, Fernando Sotelo, Nathan Stanek, Paul Stovall, Grant Stubblefield, Dillan Tabares, Thomas Tolnay Jr., Dung Tran, Brian Tsethlikai, Mary Turek, Michael Ulm, Barry Unzicker, Gary Valdez, David Vasquez, Alfredo Villegas, Daniel Wainwright, Michael Wancura, Garrett Webber, William Weick, Dale Westfall Jr., Sabine Whelan, Jimmy White, Ted Williams, Gerald Willis, Edward Wood III, James Wurst, Wesley Yager, Timothy Zech and Mark (last name unknown).
Story by: Theresa Walker ([email protected])
Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: December 19, 2017 at 4:57 pm
UPDATED: December 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm
Source: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/19/210-homeless-people-who-died-in-orange-county-the-past-year-will-be-remembered-at-an-interfaith-service-here-are-their-names/
Jerome “Jerry” Stephen Clark died last month after a hard life spent mainly on the streets, abusing drugs and alcohol as his addictions overpowered his repeated efforts to turn his life around. Somehow, he made it to 70.
Going alphabetically, Clark’s name is No. 40 on a list of 210 homeless people whose deaths over the past year will be remembered during an interfaith ceremony Thursday, Dec. 21, at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove.
The service is one of several ceremonies in Orange County that will mark National Homeless Person’s Memorial Day.
Clark passed away in a hospital, with someone present to see to his final wishes, unlike many of the other men and women on the list whose bodies were found in the myriad out-of-the-way places they frequented in life: motel rooms, railroad tracks, parking lots, freeway off-ramps, greenbelts and parks, the Santa Ana River Trail, parked vehicles, sidewalks, creek beds, bus stops.
A variety of causes precipitated their deaths: Some perished as victims of crimes or in accidents, having been shot or hit by a car, drowned or burned in a fire; others overdosed or drank themselves to death.
The oldest, 91-year-old Herbert Radd, died of cardiovascular disease in September; the youngest, Cheyanne Carrasco, 18, overdosed on a cocktail of heroin and methamphetamine in May.
The National Coalition for the Homeless began observing the memorial day in 1990, choosing the date of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Now it is marked by ceremonies in communities around the country.
This is the second year for the service at Christ Cathedral. In 2016, there were about 20 fewer names to read — men, women and children. Each had a candle lit in their honor during a ceremony that included representatives of several faith communities.
The 7 p.m. service has the same organizers as last year: the Diocese of Orange, the charitable organizations Our Father’s Table and HomeAid of OC, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Two other gatherings are scheduled during the day: at 10 a.m. outside the county Hall of Administration in the Santa Ana Civic Center and at 3:30 pm at Anaheim Cemetery in Anaheim. Organized by the nonprofit group Hope 4 Restoration and its founder, Tim Houchen, plans for those events call for remarks by several elected officials — state Sens. Josh Newman and John Moorlach and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva.
“Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is important to me because many of those that have died are actually friends of mine from when I was homeless myself,” said Houchen, who continued to advocate for homeless people after settling into supportive housing in Anaheim in 2015.
“Homeless people rarely have any kind of memorial service so it is a way for the homeless community to mourn the loss of friends and loved ones.”
Houchen said a moveable wall featuring the names of 207 homeless people to be honored by Hope 4 Restoration will be present at each gathering. The Civic Center event will finish with a march around the area by the group Housing is a Human Right OC and the “Longest Night” ceremony at Anaheim Cemetery will include an interfaith memorial service and candlelight vigil to read the names of the deceased.
As of Tuesday, Houchen had obtained proclamations recognizing National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day from 18 of the county’s 34 cities. Those proclamations will be displayed at both the Civic Center and Anaheim Cemetery gatherings.
“The events are also a community awareness tool,” Houchen said. “Many people are unfamiliar with the tremendous loss of life associated with being homeless.”
In 2016, the number of homeless people who died in Orange County hit an all-time high of 201, according to a Register review of reports from the Orange County Coroner’s Office. The death rate of homeless people in Orange County, who numbered an estimated 4,500 people in an official count conducted in January, appears to be on a similar pace for 2017.
Of the 210 people who will be acknowledged at the Christ Cathedral service, some died in December 2016, after they could be noted in last year’s memorial service. Then, as now, the bulk of the names to be read were provided by the coroner’s office. But some, like Clark, have been added by people who knew them.
Clark died in a hospital on Nov. 10, where he was taken after coming down with pneumonia while living in a creek bed in San Juan Capistrano. He underwent surgery for gastrointestinal perforation and never woke up, said Gina Seriel, founder and director of Our Father’s Table homeless outreach services in south county, who became a friend to Clark in 2014 and oversaw scattering his ashes at sea.
“It is the hardest thing I have had to do and it is also the biggest honor I have ever been given,” Seriel wrote in a eulogy she delivered at a Dec. 9 private memorial service for the white-bearded Clark, who went by the nickname “Wolfman.” Seriel also described the ups and downs Clark endured during the time she came to know him:
“One transitional program for 12 months, one room for rent for several months, one knee replacement surgery, one recuperative care stay, one room and board stay, one hip replacement surgery, several hospital and numerous doctor appointments, several court dates and homeless court appearances, trips to Social Security office, grocery store shopping, Walmart shopping trips, coffee dates, mass on Sundays, holidays spent together, Bible study, replacing his ID he always lost …
“Always landing back on the streets homeless again because at the end of the day, his addiction was stronger than his will was to stay clean.”
Clark, who called himself the black sheep in a family of 14 children in Dayton, Ohio, first ran away from home at 11, determined to get to California. He didn’t get too far, but made it out here later. He began using heroin at a young age, and also abused alcohol and other drugs.
When he worked, it was doing hard labor, which, along with living a life on the streets, took a toll on his body. The love of his life, a woman named Gwen that he met at the Swallow’s Inn in San Juan Capistrano, left him when he wouldn’t stop doing drugs.
Earlier this year, students from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts finished a 22-minute documentary called “Black Sheep” about Clark as part of the film school’s Community Voices program. The film is being entered in competitions, but was shown a few months ago at a screening Clark attended along with Seriel, whose friendship with Clark also is featured in the film.
The first voice heard in “Black Sheep” is Clark’s. “Addiction,” he says, “is a sorry way to have to live.”
Later on, Seriel, whom Clark called his guardian angel, counters with a hopeful, “Nobody should ever be given up on.”
To those organizing and attending the Homeless Person’s Memorial services, that also means not even in death.
The names of the 210 deceased homeless people in Orange County, CA in 2017 to be read are: David Adams, Sabah Alsaad, Eugenia Alvizures, Eglantine Aprahamian, Donald Arbgast Jr., Dennis Askew, Antonio Avina, Angel Baca, Manuel Barajas, Brett Baranek, James Barnes, Brian Bell, Kole Bigelow, John Birch, Ian Blackley, Ann Bonelli, Dennis Boyle, Stephen Branstetter, Ronald Briggs Jr., Stephen Broadbent, Cynthia Brown, Meghan Brown, Kris Brownell, Timothy Buckley, Garrett Budd, Dan Buller, Jim Byrnes, Shawn Cadavas, Robert Calderon Sr., Robert Carmichael, Cheyanne Carrasco, James Carroll, Lacey Cater, Robert Cavalier, Matthew Chao, Topan Chifron, Mackenzie Christian, James Clark, Jerome Clark, Paul Cockreham, Maurice Cole, Kenneth Comer, Stephen Conway, John Coombs Jr., Mark Cordova, Kenneth Creasy, Colleen Crowley-Andrasek, Gilberto Cruz, Casey Dean, Adam Delariva, David Derevjanik, Charles Dilworth, Ryan Dixon, John Doe, Mathew Doherty, Sean Dolan, Kyle Dunn, Cleland Dye, Rudolph Elias, John Engel, Ernesto Espinoza, Loretta Evans, Christopher Evans, Martin Farish, Ted Feger Jr., Helen Fields, Steven Foltman, Jerimy Frayo, Craig Fritts, Timothy Gaines, Ann Garzon, Paul Goetzen, Mitchell Gohman, Daniel Gonzalez, Jorge Gonzalez, Charles Graff, Michael Graham, Christine Grande, Jami Gravelle, John Greeley, Joel Hagan, Michael Hagemyer, David Haight, Carrie Hallauer, Bruce Hansen, Shannon Hartman, Brian Hayworth, Justin Hazzard, Jeffrey Heath, Kalab Hendrix, John Hensley, David Hicks, Richard Hiltz, Luis Hinojosa, Haro Hogan, Helen Holt-Ennis, David Hopkins, Demareya Horsley, Michael Huizar, Paul Hurst, Tony Hymon, Abderrahim Jabrane, Raymond Jocelyn, Richard Joseph, Justino Juarez, Kevin Kaiser, Gilbert Kennedy, Francis Kerns, Anne King, Thomas Kuehn, Rene Laan, Michael Lackey, Enrique Larios, David Lascoe, Roy Latumeten, Daniel Lawson, Patricia Lee, Krista Lee, Thomas Lee, Albert Lerma, Michelle Leyvas, Raymond Lieber, Jacob Lindsay, Jesus Longoria, Henry Longtin III, Aaron Lybarger, David MacMillan IV, Mark Mandrigues, Kimberly Marcum, Javier Martinez, Jenny Masters, Dennis McCarty, Cheryl McCorkle, Brian Mendez, Wilbur Merino, Yeweinishet Mesfin, Joshua Miles, Michael Miller, Paul Miskin, Francisco Moreno, James Morgan, Sergio Muniz, Sherry Murray, Martin Naponelli, Naudia Negrette, Quy Ngo, John Nguyen, Sadie Nichols, John Nondorf Jr., Randy Norris, Armando Orozco, Frank Page, Charles Painter, Phillip Parcell, Donald Patrick, Lynn Pearson, Alejandro Perez, Neal Petersen, Arnold Pierce, James Prouty, Mark Purdue, Dylan Radcliffe, Herbert Radd, Brianna Raygoza, Ebony Reeves, Galen Ricewood, Cristian Rivera, Gilbert Romero Jr., Andrew Rostron, Leah Ruml, Pedro Sajche Chan, Brian Santos, Leobardo Sauz Torres, Jason Schultz, Woodrow Sexton, David Shappell, Lory Shelit, Steven Shepard, Curtis Shipman, Bhabani Singh, Donna Sklar, Almon Smith, Fernando Sotelo, Nathan Stanek, Paul Stovall, Grant Stubblefield, Dillan Tabares, Thomas Tolnay Jr., Dung Tran, Brian Tsethlikai, Mary Turek, Michael Ulm, Barry Unzicker, Gary Valdez, David Vasquez, Alfredo Villegas, Daniel Wainwright, Michael Wancura, Garrett Webber, William Weick, Dale Westfall Jr., Sabine Whelan, Jimmy White, Ted Williams, Gerald Willis, Edward Wood III, James Wurst, Wesley Yager, Timothy Zech and Mark (last name unknown).
Story by: Theresa Walker ([email protected])
Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: December 19, 2017 at 4:57 pm
UPDATED: December 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm
Source: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/19/210-homeless-people-who-died-in-orange-county-the-past-year-will-be-remembered-at-an-interfaith-service-here-are-their-names/
210 homeless people who died in Orange County the past year will be remembered at an interfaith service. Here are their names.
Jerome “Jerry” Stephen Clark died last month after a hard life spent mainly on the streets, abusing drugs and alcohol as his addictions overpowered his repeated efforts to turn his life around. Somehow, he made it to 70.
Going alphabetically, Clark’s name is No. 40 on a list of 210 homeless people whose deaths over the past year will be remembered during an interfaith ceremony Thursday, Dec. 21, at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove.
The service is one of several ceremonies in Orange County that will mark National Homeless Person’s Memorial Day.
Clark passed away in a hospital, with someone present to see to his final wishes, unlike many of the other men and women on the list whose bodies were found in the myriad out-of-the-way places they frequented in life: motel rooms, railroad tracks, parking lots, freeway off-ramps, greenbelts and parks, the Santa Ana River Trail, parked vehicles, sidewalks, creek beds, bus stops.
A variety of causes precipitated their deaths: Some perished as victims of crimes or in accidents, having been shot or hit by a car, drowned or burned in a fire; others overdosed or drank themselves to death.
The oldest, 91-year-old Herbert Radd, died of cardiovascular disease in September; the youngest, Cheyanne Carrasco, 18, overdosed on a cocktail of heroin and methamphetamine in May.
The National Coalition for the Homeless began observing the memorial day in 1990, choosing the date of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Now it is marked by ceremonies in communities around the country.
This is the second year for the service at Christ Cathedral. In 2016, there were about 20 fewer names to read — men, women and children. Each had a candle lit in their honor during a ceremony that included representatives of several faith communities.
The 7 p.m. service has the same organizers as last year: the Diocese of Orange, the charitable organizations Our Father’s Table and HomeAid of OC, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Two other gatherings are scheduled during the day: at 10 a.m. outside the county Hall of Administration in the Santa Ana Civic Center and at 3:30 pm at Anaheim Cemetery in Anaheim. Organized by the nonprofit group Hope 4 Restoration and its founder, Tim Houchen, plans for those events call for remarks by several elected officials — state Sens. Josh Newman and John Moorlach and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva.
“Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is important to me because many of those that have died are actually friends of mine from when I was homeless myself,” said Houchen, who continued to advocate for homeless people after settling into supportive housing in Anaheim in 2015.
“Homeless people rarely have any kind of memorial service so it is a way for the homeless community to mourn the loss of friends and loved ones.”
Houchen said a moveable wall featuring the names of 207 homeless people to be honored by Hope 4 Restoration will be present at each gathering. The Civic Center event will finish with a march around the area by the group Housing is a Human Right OC and the “Longest Night” ceremony at Anaheim Cemetery will include an interfaith memorial service and candlelight vigil to read the names of the deceased.
As of Tuesday, Houchen had obtained proclamations recognizing National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day from 18 of the county’s 34 cities. Those proclamations will be displayed at both the Civic Center and Anaheim Cemetery gatherings.
“The events are also a community awareness tool,” Houchen said. “Many people are unfamiliar with the tremendous loss of life associated with being homeless.”
In 2016, the number of homeless people who died in Orange County hit an all-time high of 201, according to a Register review of reports from the Orange County Coroner’s Office. The death rate of homeless people in Orange County, who numbered an estimated 4,500 people in an official count conducted in January, appears to be on a similar pace for 2017.
Of the 210 people who will be acknowledged at the Christ Cathedral service, some died in December 2016, after they could be noted in last year’s memorial service. Then, as now, the bulk of the names to be read were provided by the coroner’s office. But some, like Clark, have been added by people who knew them.
Clark died in a hospital on Nov. 10, where he was taken after coming down with pneumonia while living in a creek bed in San Juan Capistrano. He underwent surgery for gastrointestinal perforation and never woke up, said Gina Seriel, founder and director of Our Father’s Table homeless outreach services in south county, who became a friend to Clark in 2014 and oversaw scattering his ashes at sea.
“It is the hardest thing I have had to do and it is also the biggest honor I have ever been given,” Seriel wrote in a eulogy she delivered at a Dec. 9 private memorial service for the white-bearded Clark, who went by the nickname “Wolfman.” Seriel also described the ups and downs Clark endured during the time she came to know him:
“One transitional program for 12 months, one room for rent for several months, one knee replacement surgery, one recuperative care stay, one room and board stay, one hip replacement surgery, several hospital and numerous doctor appointments, several court dates and homeless court appearances, trips to Social Security office, grocery store shopping, Walmart shopping trips, coffee dates, mass on Sundays, holidays spent together, Bible study, replacing his ID he always lost …
“Always landing back on the streets homeless again because at the end of the day, his addiction was stronger than his will was to stay clean.”
Clark, who called himself the black sheep in a family of 14 children in Dayton, Ohio, first ran away from home at 11, determined to get to California. He didn’t get too far, but made it out here later. He began using heroin at a young age, and also abused alcohol and other drugs.
When he worked, it was doing hard labor, which, along with living a life on the streets, took a toll on his body. The love of his life, a woman named Gwen that he met at the Swallow’s Inn in San Juan Capistrano, left him when he wouldn’t stop doing drugs.
Earlier this year, students from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts finished a 22-minute documentary called “Black Sheep” about Clark as part of the film school’s Community Voices program. The film is being entered in competitions, but was shown a few months ago at a screening Clark attended along with Seriel, whose friendship with Clark also is featured in the film.
The first voice heard in “Black Sheep” is Clark’s. “Addiction,” he says, “is a sorry way to have to live.”
Later on, Seriel, whom Clark called his guardian angel, counters with a hopeful, “Nobody should ever be given up on.”
To those organizing and attending the Homeless Person’s Memorial services, that also means not even in death.
The names of the 210 deceased homeless people in Orange County, CA in 2017 to be read are: David Adams, Sabah Alsaad, Eugenia Alvizures, Eglantine Aprahamian, Donald Arbgast Jr., Dennis Askew, Antonio Avina, Angel Baca, Manuel Barajas, Brett Baranek, James Barnes, Brian Bell, Kole Bigelow, John Birch, Ian Blackley, Ann Bonelli, Dennis Boyle, Stephen Branstetter, Ronald Briggs Jr., Stephen Broadbent, Cynthia Brown, Meghan Brown, Kris Brownell, Timothy Buckley, Garrett Budd, Dan Buller, Jim Byrnes, Shawn Cadavas, Robert Calderon Sr., Robert Carmichael, Cheyanne Carrasco, James Carroll, Lacey Cater, Robert Cavalier, Matthew Chao, Topan Chifron, Mackenzie Christian, James Clark, Jerome Clark, Paul Cockreham, Maurice Cole, Kenneth Comer, Stephen Conway, John Coombs Jr., Mark Cordova, Kenneth Creasy, Colleen Crowley-Andrasek, Gilberto Cruz, Casey Dean, Adam Delariva, David Derevjanik, Charles Dilworth, Ryan Dixon, John Doe, Mathew Doherty, Sean Dolan, Kyle Dunn, Cleland Dye, Rudolph Elias, John Engel, Ernesto Espinoza, Loretta Evans, Christopher Evans, Martin Farish, Ted Feger Jr., Helen Fields, Steven Foltman, Jerimy Frayo, Craig Fritts, Timothy Gaines, Ann Garzon, Paul Goetzen, Mitchell Gohman, Daniel Gonzalez, Jorge Gonzalez, Charles Graff, Michael Graham, Christine Grande, Jami Gravelle, John Greeley, Joel Hagan, Michael Hagemyer, David Haight, Carrie Hallauer, Bruce Hansen, Shannon Hartman, Brian Hayworth, Justin Hazzard, Jeffrey Heath, Kalab Hendrix, John Hensley, David Hicks, Richard Hiltz, Luis Hinojosa, Haro Hogan, Helen Holt-Ennis, David Hopkins, Demareya Horsley, Michael Huizar, Paul Hurst, Tony Hymon, Abderrahim Jabrane, Raymond Jocelyn, Richard Joseph, Justino Juarez, Kevin Kaiser, Gilbert Kennedy, Francis Kerns, Anne King, Thomas Kuehn, Rene Laan, Michael Lackey, Enrique Larios, David Lascoe, Roy Latumeten, Daniel Lawson, Patricia Lee, Krista Lee, Thomas Lee, Albert Lerma, Michelle Leyvas, Raymond Lieber, Jacob Lindsay, Jesus Longoria, Henry Longtin III, Aaron Lybarger, David MacMillan IV, Mark Mandrigues, Kimberly Marcum, Javier Martinez, Jenny Masters, Dennis McCarty, Cheryl McCorkle, Brian Mendez, Wilbur Merino, Yeweinishet Mesfin, Joshua Miles, Michael Miller, Paul Miskin, Francisco Moreno, James Morgan, Sergio Muniz, Sherry Murray, Martin Naponelli, Naudia Negrette, Quy Ngo, John Nguyen, Sadie Nichols, John Nondorf Jr., Randy Norris, Armando Orozco, Frank Page, Charles Painter, Phillip Parcell, Donald Patrick, Lynn Pearson, Alejandro Perez, Neal Petersen, Arnold Pierce, James Prouty, Mark Purdue, Dylan Radcliffe, Herbert Radd, Brianna Raygoza, Ebony Reeves, Galen Ricewood, Cristian Rivera, Gilbert Romero Jr., Andrew Rostron, Leah Ruml, Pedro Sajche Chan, Brian Santos, Leobardo Sauz Torres, Jason Schultz, Woodrow Sexton, David Shappell, Lory Shelit, Steven Shepard, Curtis Shipman, Bhabani Singh, Donna Sklar, Almon Smith, Fernando Sotelo, Nathan Stanek, Paul Stovall, Grant Stubblefield, Dillan Tabares, Thomas Tolnay Jr., Dung Tran, Brian Tsethlikai, Mary Turek, Michael Ulm, Barry Unzicker, Gary Valdez, David Vasquez, Alfredo Villegas, Daniel Wainwright, Michael Wancura, Garrett Webber, William Weick, Dale Westfall Jr., Sabine Whelan, Jimmy White, Ted Williams, Gerald Willis, Edward Wood III, James Wurst, Wesley Yager, Timothy Zech and Mark (last name unknown).
Story by: Theresa Walker ([email protected])
Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: December 19, 2017 at 4:57 pm
UPDATED: December 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm
Source: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/19/210-homeless-people-who-died-in-orange-county-the-past-year-will-be-remembered-at-an-interfaith-service-here-are-their-names/
Jerome “Jerry” Stephen Clark died last month after a hard life spent mainly on the streets, abusing drugs and alcohol as his addictions overpowered his repeated efforts to turn his life around. Somehow, he made it to 70.
Going alphabetically, Clark’s name is No. 40 on a list of 210 homeless people whose deaths over the past year will be remembered during an interfaith ceremony Thursday, Dec. 21, at Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove.
The service is one of several ceremonies in Orange County that will mark National Homeless Person’s Memorial Day.
Clark passed away in a hospital, with someone present to see to his final wishes, unlike many of the other men and women on the list whose bodies were found in the myriad out-of-the-way places they frequented in life: motel rooms, railroad tracks, parking lots, freeway off-ramps, greenbelts and parks, the Santa Ana River Trail, parked vehicles, sidewalks, creek beds, bus stops.
A variety of causes precipitated their deaths: Some perished as victims of crimes or in accidents, having been shot or hit by a car, drowned or burned in a fire; others overdosed or drank themselves to death.
The oldest, 91-year-old Herbert Radd, died of cardiovascular disease in September; the youngest, Cheyanne Carrasco, 18, overdosed on a cocktail of heroin and methamphetamine in May.
The National Coalition for the Homeless began observing the memorial day in 1990, choosing the date of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Now it is marked by ceremonies in communities around the country.
This is the second year for the service at Christ Cathedral. In 2016, there were about 20 fewer names to read — men, women and children. Each had a candle lit in their honor during a ceremony that included representatives of several faith communities.
The 7 p.m. service has the same organizers as last year: the Diocese of Orange, the charitable organizations Our Father’s Table and HomeAid of OC, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.
Two other gatherings are scheduled during the day: at 10 a.m. outside the county Hall of Administration in the Santa Ana Civic Center and at 3:30 pm at Anaheim Cemetery in Anaheim. Organized by the nonprofit group Hope 4 Restoration and its founder, Tim Houchen, plans for those events call for remarks by several elected officials — state Sens. Josh Newman and John Moorlach and Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva.
“Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is important to me because many of those that have died are actually friends of mine from when I was homeless myself,” said Houchen, who continued to advocate for homeless people after settling into supportive housing in Anaheim in 2015.
“Homeless people rarely have any kind of memorial service so it is a way for the homeless community to mourn the loss of friends and loved ones.”
Houchen said a moveable wall featuring the names of 207 homeless people to be honored by Hope 4 Restoration will be present at each gathering. The Civic Center event will finish with a march around the area by the group Housing is a Human Right OC and the “Longest Night” ceremony at Anaheim Cemetery will include an interfaith memorial service and candlelight vigil to read the names of the deceased.
As of Tuesday, Houchen had obtained proclamations recognizing National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day from 18 of the county’s 34 cities. Those proclamations will be displayed at both the Civic Center and Anaheim Cemetery gatherings.
“The events are also a community awareness tool,” Houchen said. “Many people are unfamiliar with the tremendous loss of life associated with being homeless.”
In 2016, the number of homeless people who died in Orange County hit an all-time high of 201, according to a Register review of reports from the Orange County Coroner’s Office. The death rate of homeless people in Orange County, who numbered an estimated 4,500 people in an official count conducted in January, appears to be on a similar pace for 2017.
Of the 210 people who will be acknowledged at the Christ Cathedral service, some died in December 2016, after they could be noted in last year’s memorial service. Then, as now, the bulk of the names to be read were provided by the coroner’s office. But some, like Clark, have been added by people who knew them.
Clark died in a hospital on Nov. 10, where he was taken after coming down with pneumonia while living in a creek bed in San Juan Capistrano. He underwent surgery for gastrointestinal perforation and never woke up, said Gina Seriel, founder and director of Our Father’s Table homeless outreach services in south county, who became a friend to Clark in 2014 and oversaw scattering his ashes at sea.
“It is the hardest thing I have had to do and it is also the biggest honor I have ever been given,” Seriel wrote in a eulogy she delivered at a Dec. 9 private memorial service for the white-bearded Clark, who went by the nickname “Wolfman.” Seriel also described the ups and downs Clark endured during the time she came to know him:
“One transitional program for 12 months, one room for rent for several months, one knee replacement surgery, one recuperative care stay, one room and board stay, one hip replacement surgery, several hospital and numerous doctor appointments, several court dates and homeless court appearances, trips to Social Security office, grocery store shopping, Walmart shopping trips, coffee dates, mass on Sundays, holidays spent together, Bible study, replacing his ID he always lost …
“Always landing back on the streets homeless again because at the end of the day, his addiction was stronger than his will was to stay clean.”
Clark, who called himself the black sheep in a family of 14 children in Dayton, Ohio, first ran away from home at 11, determined to get to California. He didn’t get too far, but made it out here later. He began using heroin at a young age, and also abused alcohol and other drugs.
When he worked, it was doing hard labor, which, along with living a life on the streets, took a toll on his body. The love of his life, a woman named Gwen that he met at the Swallow’s Inn in San Juan Capistrano, left him when he wouldn’t stop doing drugs.
Earlier this year, students from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts finished a 22-minute documentary called “Black Sheep” about Clark as part of the film school’s Community Voices program. The film is being entered in competitions, but was shown a few months ago at a screening Clark attended along with Seriel, whose friendship with Clark also is featured in the film.
The first voice heard in “Black Sheep” is Clark’s. “Addiction,” he says, “is a sorry way to have to live.”
Later on, Seriel, whom Clark called his guardian angel, counters with a hopeful, “Nobody should ever be given up on.”
To those organizing and attending the Homeless Person’s Memorial services, that also means not even in death.
The names of the 210 deceased homeless people in Orange County, CA in 2017 to be read are: David Adams, Sabah Alsaad, Eugenia Alvizures, Eglantine Aprahamian, Donald Arbgast Jr., Dennis Askew, Antonio Avina, Angel Baca, Manuel Barajas, Brett Baranek, James Barnes, Brian Bell, Kole Bigelow, John Birch, Ian Blackley, Ann Bonelli, Dennis Boyle, Stephen Branstetter, Ronald Briggs Jr., Stephen Broadbent, Cynthia Brown, Meghan Brown, Kris Brownell, Timothy Buckley, Garrett Budd, Dan Buller, Jim Byrnes, Shawn Cadavas, Robert Calderon Sr., Robert Carmichael, Cheyanne Carrasco, James Carroll, Lacey Cater, Robert Cavalier, Matthew Chao, Topan Chifron, Mackenzie Christian, James Clark, Jerome Clark, Paul Cockreham, Maurice Cole, Kenneth Comer, Stephen Conway, John Coombs Jr., Mark Cordova, Kenneth Creasy, Colleen Crowley-Andrasek, Gilberto Cruz, Casey Dean, Adam Delariva, David Derevjanik, Charles Dilworth, Ryan Dixon, John Doe, Mathew Doherty, Sean Dolan, Kyle Dunn, Cleland Dye, Rudolph Elias, John Engel, Ernesto Espinoza, Loretta Evans, Christopher Evans, Martin Farish, Ted Feger Jr., Helen Fields, Steven Foltman, Jerimy Frayo, Craig Fritts, Timothy Gaines, Ann Garzon, Paul Goetzen, Mitchell Gohman, Daniel Gonzalez, Jorge Gonzalez, Charles Graff, Michael Graham, Christine Grande, Jami Gravelle, John Greeley, Joel Hagan, Michael Hagemyer, David Haight, Carrie Hallauer, Bruce Hansen, Shannon Hartman, Brian Hayworth, Justin Hazzard, Jeffrey Heath, Kalab Hendrix, John Hensley, David Hicks, Richard Hiltz, Luis Hinojosa, Haro Hogan, Helen Holt-Ennis, David Hopkins, Demareya Horsley, Michael Huizar, Paul Hurst, Tony Hymon, Abderrahim Jabrane, Raymond Jocelyn, Richard Joseph, Justino Juarez, Kevin Kaiser, Gilbert Kennedy, Francis Kerns, Anne King, Thomas Kuehn, Rene Laan, Michael Lackey, Enrique Larios, David Lascoe, Roy Latumeten, Daniel Lawson, Patricia Lee, Krista Lee, Thomas Lee, Albert Lerma, Michelle Leyvas, Raymond Lieber, Jacob Lindsay, Jesus Longoria, Henry Longtin III, Aaron Lybarger, David MacMillan IV, Mark Mandrigues, Kimberly Marcum, Javier Martinez, Jenny Masters, Dennis McCarty, Cheryl McCorkle, Brian Mendez, Wilbur Merino, Yeweinishet Mesfin, Joshua Miles, Michael Miller, Paul Miskin, Francisco Moreno, James Morgan, Sergio Muniz, Sherry Murray, Martin Naponelli, Naudia Negrette, Quy Ngo, John Nguyen, Sadie Nichols, John Nondorf Jr., Randy Norris, Armando Orozco, Frank Page, Charles Painter, Phillip Parcell, Donald Patrick, Lynn Pearson, Alejandro Perez, Neal Petersen, Arnold Pierce, James Prouty, Mark Purdue, Dylan Radcliffe, Herbert Radd, Brianna Raygoza, Ebony Reeves, Galen Ricewood, Cristian Rivera, Gilbert Romero Jr., Andrew Rostron, Leah Ruml, Pedro Sajche Chan, Brian Santos, Leobardo Sauz Torres, Jason Schultz, Woodrow Sexton, David Shappell, Lory Shelit, Steven Shepard, Curtis Shipman, Bhabani Singh, Donna Sklar, Almon Smith, Fernando Sotelo, Nathan Stanek, Paul Stovall, Grant Stubblefield, Dillan Tabares, Thomas Tolnay Jr., Dung Tran, Brian Tsethlikai, Mary Turek, Michael Ulm, Barry Unzicker, Gary Valdez, David Vasquez, Alfredo Villegas, Daniel Wainwright, Michael Wancura, Garrett Webber, William Weick, Dale Westfall Jr., Sabine Whelan, Jimmy White, Ted Williams, Gerald Willis, Edward Wood III, James Wurst, Wesley Yager, Timothy Zech and Mark (last name unknown).
Story by: Theresa Walker ([email protected])
Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: December 19, 2017 at 4:57 pm
UPDATED: December 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm
Source: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/19/210-homeless-people-who-died-in-orange-county-the-past-year-will-be-remembered-at-an-interfaith-service-here-are-their-names/
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
