A shopping cart holding the belongings of a homeless person is parked on the sidewalk near Watt Avenue during the Sacramento County Point-in-Time homeless count on Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. The survey is conducted every two years in an attempt to measure the number and demographics of the county’s homeless population.
HECTOR AMEZCUA
hamezcua@sacbee.com
Three homeless men froze to death on Sacramento County sidewalks this past winter, despite warming centers being open.
David Yeager, 59, died March 13 after his naked body was found outside 1121 I St., one block from City Hall in downtown Sacramento, according to the coroner death report, which The Sacramento Bee obtained from a California Public Records Act Request.
An autopsy determined the single cause of Yeager’s death was hypothermia.
Earlier that winter, Mitchell Meredith, 65, died Feb. 9, 2025, his body found near 470 Bannon St. in Sacramento’s River District, just north of downtown. Terrence Shoots, 54, died Jan. 12, 2025, his body found outdoors in a Foothill Farms strip mall in Sacramento County.
The coroner’s office determined the cause of death for both Meredith and Shoots was hypothermia. Meredith’s death report lists methamphetamine intoxication as a significant condition, while Shoots’ lists acute and chronic alcohol toxicity as a significant condition.
Other homeless people have died in Sacramento during previous winters.
In November 2022, three people froze to death, prompting the City Council in August 2023 to issue new guidelines for warming centers. Under the new guidelines, the centers open more frequently, partly because they take the presence of rain and wind more into consideration. One of the conditions that triggers the centers to open is if there is a 50% or higher probability of nighttime lows of 37 degrees or lower for two or more days within a five-day span.
The criteria meant the centers were open the nights the three men died, which has not always been the case. Under the previous guidelines in November 2022, two people froze to death on nights the centers were not open.
However, the city and county should open more buildings across the city, homeless activists said after learning from The Bee about the three men.
Spokespeople for the city and county said the entities will continue to follow its existing weather guidelines when determining when to open warming centers. Warming centers are currently open for 10 days through Wednesday, they pointed out.
“Every death is tragic,” said Janna Haynes, a county spokesperson. “While we do open and run weather respite and more than 1,000 shelter beds nightly, we cannot compel any person to use the services we provide.”
Julie Hall, a city spokesperson, agreed.
“We want to first express that any loss of life is tragic, especially for those who lose a loved one, family member or friend,” Hall said. “The Sacramento City Council established weather guidelines that determine when weather respite centers are activated to provide temporary relief during certain weather conditions. The City is committed to activating these centers when the Council-approved temperature thresholds are met.”
“The Sacramento Homeless Union begs our local leaders: how many more people have to die on our streets before this becomes urgent enough to act?” Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union, said Monday. “Every storm, every cold snap, every extreme weather event becomes a life-or-death situation for our unhoused neighbors. These deaths are preventable. When someone dies from exposure on a sidewalk in our city, it is not because we lack buildings or resources it is because we have failed to open the doors. We are pleading for immediate access to more indoor spaces to serve as emergency triage centers.”
Sanchez suggested the Memorial Auditorium, the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, the basement of Golden 1 Center and the City Hall lobby as some potential options for the triage centers. She pointed out one of the warming centers, the Outreach and Engagement Center at 3615 Auburn Blvd., is far from downtown where thousands of homeless people live.
People can get free bus rides to those locations, but it often requires them to show a flyer on a cellphone, Sanchez said. Some homeless people don’t have cellphones or have ways to charge them.
Niki Jones, executive director of the Sacramento Area Coalition to End Homelessness, said homeless people are more vulnerable to the elements without warm clothing, tents and tarps, following the 2024 Grants Pass U.S. Supreme Court decision. Since that ruling, Sacramento can legally ban people from camping on public property, even if there is no shelter bed available to move them to.
“With rains this week and nights near freezing, I am afraid of the repeat of this preventable tragedy,” Jones said. “It’s a public health crisis and we need effective, expansive public health interventions to scale, namely housing, not carceral, punitive ones such as criminalization and forced displacement.”
It will likely take the coroner’s office several months to determine the cause of death for homeless deaths occurring this winter.
Thousands of people sleep outdoors downtown partly because they can more easily access services. Both Yeager and Meredith had visited nonprofit Loaves and Fishes for meals and services, said George Kohrummel of the nonprofit. Meredith had visited from December 2024 to January 2025, just two months before he died. Yeager had visited from 2023 to September 2024.
There are now 2,800 city and county-funded shelter beds in Sacramento, more than ever before. But there is still a wait list of over 3,000 people, including 600 families, for a shelter bed on any given night, Emily Halcon, the county’s director of homeless services and housing, has said.
There are at least 9,000 homeless people living in Sacramento County as of December, according to a database from organization Sacramento Steps Forward.
Two additional homeless women — Alexandra Lee, 37, and Tracy Dippel, 62 — died winter 2025 with hypothermia listed as a significant condition, though not the cause.
The five people were among at least 232 homeless people who died in Sacramento County in 2025, according to coroner records.
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Theresa Clift is the Regional Watchdog Reporter for The Sacramento Bee. She covered Sacramento City Hall for The Bee from 2018 through 2024. Before joining The Bee, she worked for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. She grew up in Michigan and graduated with a journalism degree from Central Michigan University.