In December 2024, communities across the United States held Homeless Persons’ Memorial Services to remember those who died without homes over the past year. Below are my remarks from the National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day Service.

Today marks the 27th year I have been coming to services like this one, and it doesn’t get any easier. In many ways, it gets harder the more years we come together, the more names we read.

We are living through difficult days. It is a time of anger, of hatred, of wars. A time when the work of racial justice and LGBTQ equality is met with tremendous backlash. When far too often people experiencing poverty and discrimination are blamed for their dire situation. It is a time when lies abound.

And yet, as Nikki Giovanni wrote, “If now isn’t a good time for the truth, I don’t see when we’ll get to it.”

So today, as we remember those we have lost, let us also remember these truths:

Everyone deserves a home. That’s just true.
Housing is the foundation on which people can achieve recovery, work, and reconnection with family, friends, and community. That is just true.
No one should ever die on the streets of the United States, or anywhere across the globe. Truth.
Homelessness is solvable. In fact, there is enough money in this country among its 801 billionaires alone—with their combined wealth of $6.2 trillion—to end homelessness 300 times over. This may be uncomfortable for the ultra-wealthy to hear, but it is just true.

We as a nation can do better. We must do better.

It is also true that we all have a role to play: Whether you have experienced the horrors of homelessness and are raising your voice to lift others or if you are a service provider who fights everyday side-by-side with your house-less friends and neighbors…whether you are a faith community leader or a business person, an elected official or a career public servant…whether you have been in this work for 3 months or 30 years…

The fight to end homelessness is our fight. We are in this together. And when we stick together—when we gather up to raise our shared voice and our collective power—we cannot lose.

I can imagine a day when everyone has a roof over their head and a door to lock—a home. I know you can too.

Until then, we must work relentlessly to finish the work, even when the days seem the darkest. For as the Sufi poet Rumi teaches us, “If everything around you seems dark, look again. You may be the light.”