Number of Homeless Deaths Continue to Rise

The temperature dropped into the teens the night Kelvin Black sat down in Salt Lake City and never got up again. At 39, the homeless man had slept outside for much of his life, but things were finally looking up. Since spring, he'd had his own room at an apartment complex for the formerly homeless, Palmer Court -- though it took him a while to unfold the clean sheets and stop sleeping on the floor.

He should have been one of the success stories. Instead, Black died on the sidewalk about a block and a half from his new home on Dec. 4. Black, who suffered from alcoholism, didn't follow his friends when they encouraged him to go back to Palmer Court on that bitterly cold night. He was among the 58 people -- a new record -- who died this year after struggling with homelessness.