General
Jean Rice, Advocate for the Homeless, Is Dead at 85
Homeless himself, he was for nearly two decades a pivotal member of Picture the Homeless, a group devoted to changing negative perceptions of the unhoused.
Jean Rice, who for decades scratched out a living, nickel by nickel, picking up deposit cans in New York while becoming a well-respected advocate for the homeless, died on March 12 in Queens. He was 85.
The cause of his death, in a hospital, was heart disease, said Lillie Mae John, his cousin. Since 2020, after surviving Covid, Mr. Rice had lived in a veterans’ residence on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Mr. Rice was homeless on and off for 30 years — but during that time he took and passed college-level courses, spoke at Brooklyn Law School and struck alliances with powerful political figures.
“He always took care of himself,” Ms. John said. “He didn’t have to be homeless. He chose that life.”
Attorney General Letitia James of New York met Mr. Rice when she served on the City Council. She called him Daddy because the sparkle in his eyes reminded her of her father, a maintenance worker.
“When Jean walked into a room, everyone would call his name out,” Ms. James said in an interview. “I looked past his struggles and the fact that he was unhoused and just respected his humanity, and thought about how we as a society need to tap into the human potential of individuals who are unhoused, but offer us so much as a society.”
