Utah News Dispatch
‘We need to do more’: Utah vigil honors 80 who died in 2025 while homeless
Jarod Beardon gives a speech honoring people who died in 2025 while experiencing homelessness during a vigil at Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City on Dec. 18, 2025. (Katie McKellar/Utah News Dispatch)
Heidi Barr. Hoi ‘Holly’ Xuan. Anjala Evans. Jose Hernandez.
As he read their names aloud Thursday night in front of a somber crowd illuminated by candlelight, Herbert Elliot — co-chair of the consumer advisory board for the Fourth Street Clinic, which provides health care for the homeless in Salt Lake City — dropped a small stone into a glass jar for each name.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
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By the end of the list, about 80 stones filled the jar.
That’s how many known people died in 2025 while experiencing homelessness or having been homeless. There is likely more. Thursday’s vigil in Pioneer Park is part of an annual tradition to honor the lives lost in Utah’s homeless community — and to honor those who might otherwise be forgotten.
When the name James Owen Dennis was read aloud, a hooded man in the crowd named Darien Willardson murmured, “Love you, James.”
His face glowed from the single candle he held in his hands. By the time the rest of the names were read aloud and the last stone clinked into the jar, the candle Willardson held had melted down to the bottom of its wick.
After the vigil, Willardson told Utah News Dispatch he knew two men on the list. One was Dennis. The other was Rodney, whose last name was listed as unknown on the vigil’s program.
Willardson — who leads outreach teams for the Rescue Mission, a faith-based nonprofit helping the homeless in Salt Lake City — said Dennis went through the Rescue Mission’s recovery program. After Dennis moved away to take care of his dad, Willardson said he was diagnosed with cancer. He died just two weeks ago.
“He loved coming to Bible study and just reading the word. He didn’t preach or judge … he would just read the word and sit with it,” Willardson said of Dennis.
Willardson also knew Rodney because he said he used to meet him under a bridge near the Jordan River Trail.
Though Willardson said he would try to encourage Rodney to come to the Rescue Mission, “he never wanted to come,” he said. “He wanted to live out his days comfortably under the bridge, and that was his home.”
So Willardson said he struck a deal with Rodney — that he would continue to keep checking on him “and bring what I could to make his stay a little more comfortable.”
But one day, when Willardson came to find him, Rodney was gone.
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“He passed away living under that bridge,” Willardson said.
He said it could have been because of exposure, sickness, or a drug overdose. He didn’t know. All Willardson said he did know was that when he went to check on Rodney in October, some nearby campers said his body had been taken away the week prior.
Willardson said sometimes he wished he could “grab him by his collar and pull him out. But I think I am at peace with it, knowing I did everything I could.”
“I can only do so much,” Willardson said. “I can’t change hearts. But I can do everything in my power to show them love.”
A lack of resources
Through song and prayer, vigil speakers and attendees honored the lost lives with tears — but also calls to action. They also urged Utahns to come together to do more for the state’s homeless.
Among them was former Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, who earlier this month retired from his role as state homeless coordinator. Tearfully, Niederhauser said a “lack of resources” is a constant struggle when it comes to dealing with homelessness.
“It’s a scarcity of treatment and housing and a lot of other things,” he said. “And it seems that when there’s a scarcity of something, it’s our most vulnerable populations that end up without.”
But Niederhauser also gave a nod to the “progress that we’ve made over the last several years” to commit more funding to homeless services, housing and shelter throughout the state’s system.
He thanked homeless service providers who are by no means “getting rich working in homeless services, but they are getting rich in a way where they’re helping humans.”
“The reward of helping others is riches beyond anything on this earth,” he said.
‘We need to do more’
Jarod Beardon once lived on the streets of Salt Lake City but now works for the INN Between, which provides end-of-life care for people experiencing homelessness. He also spoke during the vigil — which he said he was at first reluctant to do because his experience with homelessness “has scarred me.”
“I remember having to walk the streets at night, having to look for a safe and secure place to sleep,” he said. “I remember feeling so tired that I felt like at any moment I could pass out on the streets or in some random ditch.”
Beardon said he also remembered having “a working cellphone,” and yet “not one person that I could call that would let me come stay the night.”
“I remember the drugs and everything that comes along with that,” he said, but he added what he remembered most “was the looks that I would get from people going to work, and how low I felt. For the first time in my life, I felt less than and, quite frankly, not human.”
Beardon said the “wonderful, courageous people” being honored during the vigil aren’t “just a name to me. In many ways, they are me. And I am them.”
“I’ve met people that have at one point earned six-figure incomes that now by some unexpected circumstance are now spending their nights (in homeless shelters),” he said.
Through his work at the INN Between, Beardon said he’s learned “that what connects us all is that we all have trauma,” and that’s helped him heal from his own trauma every day.
“Now, many of the names we are reading tonight belong to people who did not pass away in a safe space, surrounded by care, and were never formally memorialized,” he said. “Some, however, spent their final days at the INN Between, resting in a bed and not on the streets. Surrounded by people who cared deeply for them.”
After their deaths at the INN Between, he said their lives were honored by a candlelight ceremony “because everyone deserves that basic dignity. Everyone.”
Beardon thanked the more than 100 people who showed up for the vigil — but he also issued a call for everyone to do more for Utah’s homeless.
“Even though we are making progress, it is just a small, small dent,” he said. “We need to do more. We need more of everything. More of your support. More of your money. More of things like socks, clothing, food, anything you can possibly give.”
The most important thing, he said, “is we need people not to judge.”
“We need people not to look at homeless people like they’re not people,” he said. “Because they are. We need your compassion.”
