Snyder Remembered as ‘Man of Justice’ : Homeless: He answered a ‘moral call,’ Jesse Jackson tells 600 mourners. The advocate for the poor apparently committed suicide.

Mitch Snyder, whose personal demons apparently overwhelmed his fierce commitment to the nation’s homeless, was remembered Friday as “a man of justice” who worked tirelessly to assist the downtrodden.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson told a memorial service at Bible Way Church that Snyder was a man who heard and answered a “moral call” to help the homeless.

“The fact that birds have a home, foxes have a home, and yet men and women, veterans of foreign wars, mothers and fathers, working poor people, have no place to lay their head--he found that to be a moral disgrace,” Jackson told about 600 mourners.

Snyder, 46, was found hanged Thursday in his third-floor room at the 1,300-bed Community for Creative Non-Violence shelter, a once-vacant federal building that he had persuaded President Reagan to turn over to the homeless with a 51-day hunger strike in 1984.

An autopsy showed that Snyder died from asphyxiation due to hanging, apparently from an electrical cord, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, District of Columbia public health commissioner.

Police said Snyder may have been dead for up to two days when his body was found. “It could have been as much as more than 24 hours,” Benjamin said Friday.

The death has not yet been ruled a suicide, but Benjamin said there is no evidence of foul play.

Police said a note containing “suicidal references” was found near Snyder’s body, and law enforcement sources said the note outlined personal problems Snyder was having in his 15-year relationship with fellow homeless advocate Carol Fennelly.

The two had said last month that they would be married in September.

At the memorial service, Jackson described Snyder’s dramatic efforts to draw attention to homelessness, which included hunger strikes and sit-ins.

“Mitch was a little eccentric, Mitch was a little off,” Jackson said to appreciative laughs from the mourners, most of whom live at Snyder’s shelter. “But he was a man of justice. There’s something to be said about being a little off.

“He chose to live with the poor. He chose to argue for the homeless. He chose to embarrass, harass and challenge our leadership,” Jackson told the crowd. “He became the heart of the national conscience for building affordable housing for homeless people. He made his footprint in the sands of time.”

Keith Pennix, 26, a resident of the shelter, said: “Every step of the way, I’m going to be with Mitch. I don’t care if he’s in heaven. I’m going to be with him, because I love Mitch. He was a good father.”

A funeral is scheduled for Tuesday outside the shelter.