25 unhoused die in OC in April as county shows 25% drop in 2024 deaths

25 unhoused people died in Orange County in April 2026, even as the county's Sheriff-Coroner released a new analysis showing homeless deaths fell 25 percent countywide in 2024, according to Voice of OC.

The simultaneous figures capture OC's halting progress: the 2026 year-to-date count of 101 deaths is well below the 184 recorded by the same date in 2023, but dozens of unhoused residents continue to die each month across one of California's wealthiest counties.

Orange County's 2026 year-to-date homeless death total reached 101 as of May 29, compared with 125 by the same date in 2025 and 184 in 2023, according to Voice of OC. One person who died in January 2026 was added to the year's count following a delayed coroner determination.

The OC Sheriff-Coroner's Homeless Death Review Committee's 2024 annual report, released this week, found that fentanyl-related fatalities dropped by 103 between 2023 and 2024 — the primary driver of the overall 25 percent decline, according to the report.

Despite that improvement, the proportions of how unhoused people are dying remained largely stable across the four-year period from 2021 through 2024. Accidental deaths, including drug overdoses, consistently accounted for 54 to 65 percent of fatalities; natural causes accounted for 26 to 37 percent, the committee found.

Of the 378 unhoused people whose deaths were analyzed over that period, only 32 — fewer than 10 percent — were enrolled in a shelter at the time they died. Committee researchers noted that some deaths occurring inside shelter facilities may have been miscategorized as non-homeless, according to the report.

Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM, pastor of St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church in Fullerton and a regular chronicler of OC homeless deaths, offered a measured reading of the trend. "Knowledge is good, and these reports will help to continue to reduce and hopefully one day soon eliminate the deaths of these people, the unhoused, who certainly are among the most vulnerable people living in our midst," he said.

The 25 people who died in April were found across Orange County, including in Santa Ana, Buena Park, Anaheim, Fountain Valley, Orange, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Placentia, San Clemente and Garden Grove, Voice of OC reported.