PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Twelve of the 24 pedestrians killed in car crashes in 2023 were homeless, the Portland Bureau of Transportation says.

According to the PBOT’s 2023 Deadly Traffic Report, which was presented to the Portland City Council on April 17, homeless people make up an estimated 0.6% of Multnomah County’s population but represented 19% of all traffic deaths in Portland last year.

“These statistics speak to the extreme risks of persistent exposure to traffic, often on high-speed streets,” the annual traffic report states.

Homeless people have represented a high number of pedestrians killed by automobiles in the city since the Portland Police Bureau began tracking the statistics in 2021. However, the percentage of homeless pedestrians killed by vehicles has declined each year.

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In 2022, 10 of the 28 pedestrians killed in Portland were homeless (36%), meaning homeless Portlanders were more than 50 times more likely to die in pedestrian traffic accidents than the rest of the population. In 2021, 70% of the 27 pedestrians killed by cars in Portland were homeless.

“PBOT has not tracked the housing status of victims in the past, but these numbers in 2021 stood out and represent an alarming pattern we’ll track more closely in the future,” PBOT wrote in 2021.

KOIN 6 News reporter Joelle Jones reported on Wednesday that Portland’s traffic death toll hit a record high in 2023. Traffic deaths have consistently increased in recent years, despite the City of Portland’s “Vision Zero” initiative, which was created in 2015 to reduce traffic deaths.

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Of the 69 people killed in Portland traffic crashes in 2023, 32 were in vehicles, 11 were on motorcycles, 24 were pedestrians and two were bicyclists. One of the cyclists killed in 2023 was also homeless.

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