The grounds of San Jose City Hall took on a somber mood with a display of 161 tombstones honoring the homeless people who died in Santa Clara County this year.
The grave markers, painted with the names and years of birth and death for each soul, were set up Saturday and Sunday.
Housing and homeless advocate Shaunn Cartwright is responsible for the sober display. She said she wanted this to be “a punch in the gut,” but never imagined the impact it would have.
“You say that we lost 161 people on the streets,” said Cartwright. “That’s just a number and you don’t feel anything, but when you walk through the loss of 161 people, 161 tombstones, you feel that. You read their names. You realize that there’s two babies that didn’t survive a day of life. You realize that there’s a 94-year-old, a 90-year-old, an 86-year-old man who died in his car. Those are the things that you realize when you walk through the tombstones.”
Of the more than 9,700 homeless people living in the county, 161 died between Nov. 30, 2018 and December 1 of this year, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Cartwright said that she expected people to brush past the display or observe it as a whole, but they were actually surprisingly reverent around the scene. Some stopped to read each and every name and year, and spoke in soft tones as if they were at a cemetery.
“You can stop at the tombstones and you can feel the presence of people,” she said. “You can mourn somebody that you’ve lost.”
There are now plans to show the display at other locations in the county.
