Not Just a Number: My Story and Why I Created This Sub

In October 2020, my sister got a phone call saying our dad had died in Colorado Springs, frozen to death on a park bench. In mid-October? He had survived three winters homeless in Denver by that point. It didn’t make sense. There was no obituary. No news report. No request for next of kin to identify the body. No funeral arrangements. No personal belongings returned. Just a single phone call, and then silence.

I didn’t buy it.

For years, I kept digging, trying to find something that would confirm what we were told. In 2023, I requested his death certificate. There was no record of his death anywhere in the state of Colorado.

I asked for help and was told, “He’s an adult. He’s homeless. He’s an addict. People like that tend to disappear. Adults have the right to disappear.”
As if that was the end of the conversation.

But what if it wasn’t by choice? What if something happened, and no one looked because no one cared?

That’s the truth I’ve had to live with: that when people like my dad go missing, they become invisible. To the system, they’re just another number. A search gets logged, a box gets checked, and the case goes cold. No one calls their family. No one posts their face on the news. They check a few databases, scroll through the arrest records, skim the local headlines, and move on.

Because it’s not their dad.
It’s not their sister.
It’s not their child.
It’s not their spouse.

But to someone, that person is everything.

This subreddit is for people like me, people who are still searching. People who were told to stop asking questions. People who know something don’t add up, and refuse to give up. We share tips, tools, search methods, and emotional support. We help each other track the untrackable. We believe the missing deserve more than a shrug and a forgotten case file.

If you live in or frequent the Denver/Colorado Springs area, and especially if you are or work with the homeless communities of these areas, I need your help. Please contact me.

If the system won’t help us search, then we’ll search together.

You’re not alone.