TOWSON, Md. — Many people experience homelessness and every year a number of them pass away.
It's why, on the first day of winter every year, Baltimore County Communities for the Homeless and other organizations gather to honor those who lost their lives.
"Every year this is the longest night of the year first day of Christmas 175 cities across the country come together to recognize those who passed away while homeless, or may be who have been chronically, homeless, and recently housed, and passed away in their homes," says Megan Goffney.
During the ceremony, there was prayer, music, singing, and the names of each person who died this year was read aloud, even the ones who weren’t identified.
Fred Weimert says they do this because in some cases, the homeless are without family or anyone who can honor them.
So the community does it for them.
“It is sad to lose a person's name, and it is really heartbreaking to think of these people. For so long, we may have passed them on the street and never really known them," says Fred Weimert.
He says his own experience with the homeless population in Baltimore county is why he participates in the memorial every year.
“I saw a lot of the fellas that we’re on the street and got to know them as human beings and we were just talking. Yeah it’s kind of how i got to know them," says Fred Weimert.
Weimert also says it's important for people to remember these are human beings, people who have lived and died on the streets.
He says they should be treated with respect and honored no matter what led them to become homeless.
"So many people—this is their only commemoration of their lives, and so it’s important for us to come together to really remember one that people are still dying of homelessness. They don’t have a place to lay their head or one place to sleep at night, so it’s very important to recognize those lives.“
After the ceremony, they lit candles and said a final goodbye at the commemorative plaque outside of the Historic Courthouse in Towson.