GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — This past March, six individuals battling homelessness in Gaston County died in a 24-hour time period. 

What You Need To Know

Displaced Roses is a boots on the ground outreach ministry helping the Gaston County community experiencing homelessness 

So far this year, 16 unhoused individuals in the county have died, six total in just one day back in March 

Founder Danielle Webb quit her job in behavioral health to help the community full-time

Webb makes sure every person who dies while battling homelessness gets a proper memorial

For community outreach coordinator Danielle Webb, it was absolutely heartbreaking. 

"Because they are somebody, they are someone’s loved one, someone’s child, somewhere," Webb said. 

Webb quit her full-time job in behavioral health a year ago to help her community full-time. She founded Displaced Roses, an outreach organization. Webb says she saw first-hand what the community was going through and the needs the unhoused had. 

“I had a full-time job. I had just finished my second degree. We were at an extended stay, my son and I. They’re very expensive, and I was burning through my paychecks trying to keep a roof over our head. It's very hard,” Webb said. 

"People say, 'Well people have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Well at some point somebody has to give them boots,” Webb said. 

She is out in the community every day, helping them find jobs, getting them gas money to get to their jobs, helping feed them and even finding food for their animals. 

So when she experienced heartbreak with the death of six people back in March, Webb didn't stop caring after them. She made sure any family or friends were contacted, and she found an organization that would help her give each one a proper memorial and burial. 

According to the Gaston County Health Department, when an unhoused person passes, the body is sent to the morgue. The remains are held for a period of days while social services tries to contact any family and to properly identify the individual. If the remains are unclaimed, the body is typically cremated by a funeral home. 

For Webb, she couldn't allow anyone to be forgotten. 

Out of the six individuals, she found family or friends for five of them. But for 30-year-old Shakeel Jones, she could not find any family around. For months Webb contacted, called, researched and asked around without any luck. 

Then one day in October, almost six months after his death, Webb found his family. 

Jones' aunt, Brenda Williams, contacted her. 

In a tearful reunion, Webb handed Jones' remains, cremated in a nice urn, to his family. 

“I’m just so glad that your heart thought more of him and treated him like a human. That means so much. It really does, it really does," Williams told Webb through a tearful embrace.