2025 Annual Homeless Memorial
On December 20th, members from Daybreak Arts gathered alongside other nonprofits and housing advocates at the annual Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day to remember lives that should never have been lost.
In 2025, 169+ people died while unhoused in our community. Each name represents a person who mattered, who was loved, who deserved safety, dignity, and care.
We met at the Tara Cole Memorial Bench, named for Tara Cole, an unhoused woman who was murdered in 2006 when someone rolled her into the Cumberland River while she slept. Standing there was a stark reminder of the cruelty, dehumanization, and lack of safety that unhoused people face every day.
Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day is held every year around the Winter Solstice—the longest night—because it is often the most dangerous time to be without shelter. Across the country, communities gather to read names, light candles, grieve, and call for change. Last weekend, we did that together.
We are grateful for a community willing to pause and name the truth: these deaths are not accidents. They are the predictable outcome of a system that treats housing as a commodity, sacrifices poor and working people for profit, and enforces abandonment through policy, violence, and neglect.
We are thankful for Open Table Nashville, Inc., The Contributor, Room In The Inn, and the many organizations and individuals who showed up today to hold space, speak names, and refuse to look away.
We also want to recognize Daybreak Artists Daniel Holmes, A.M. Hassan, and Cheryl, who performed Daniel’s powerful song, “Our Lives Are an Unwritten Song,” alongside other members of the Nashville Voices of Resilience Homeless Choir by Morning Coffee Artist during the memorial event. Their voices carried grief, truth, and resilience—reminding us that unhoused people are not statistics, but artists, storytellers, neighbors, and leaders.
May we remember.
May we grieve honestly.
And may we turn this remembrance into action—until no one is left to die without a home.
