Project Description
Made possible by an Arts for Social Justice Grant from SCU’s College of Arts & Sciences and additional funding from Destination: Home SV, the Unhoused Initiative at Santa Clara University is proud to present “Confronting the Homelessness Crisis through Art” – a fall quarter art exhibition highlighting artistic works of people with lived experience of homelessness. Through the project, we hope to shine a light on the homelessness crisis in Silicon Valley through creative mediums and their creators. Visual art, poetry, music and presentations, will center the perspectives of people who have experienced homelessness during this four-week exhibition.
The Series of Events
All events are free of charge and open too all
Display of Art by People with Lived Experience of Homelessness
October 26 – November 20, Second Floor of the University Library
Tombstone Memorial for the Unhoused
October 29 and 30 from 10am – 5pm, on the Lawn between Kenna & Benson
Guided Reflection led by Tony Cortese of SCU’s Ignatian Center
Thursday, October 29 at 11:30am, at the Tombstone Memorial
Musical Performance by Shamira Dickerson
Friday, October 30 at 4:30pm, at the Tombstone Memorial
Lecture by Art Hazelwood & Artists Reception
Monday, November 9th from 4:30pm – 6:00pm, California Mission Room/Benson Center
Hear from artist and activist, Art Hazelwood about his life and ongoing work. Afterward, enjoy remarks and Q&A with our participating artists. Food and drinks provided.
The Unhoused Initiative
The Unhoused Initiative is an interdisciplinary collaboration that seeks to harness University resources to meaningfully respond to homelessness in Silicon Valley through community-informed research and coursework, educational events of diverse perspectives, and direct service and advocacy, with a commitment to centering the dignity and humanity of people experiencing homelessness.
Through experiential coursework, direct service, research projects and community collaboration, the UI offers Broncos – from students to faculty to alums – the opportunity to put our Jesuit values into practice. Whether volunteering at the Mobile Showers, conducting interviews about the impact of sweeps, or providing free legal services, those partnering with the UI find meaningful opportunities to engage with and understand the many complexities of the housing and homelessness crisis and those who are living it.
The Unhoused Initiative is supported by Destination Home: SV, the Deans of the College of Arts & Sciences and the School of Law and private gift funds.
Give us a follow on Instagram: @unhoused_initiative_scu
Homelessness in Silicon Valley
Homelessness is one of the greatest social justice challenges of our time. As the cost of living continues to increase, along with vast disparities in wealth and resources in Silicon Valley, resolving the homelessness crisis continues to be a challenge for our entire community. In particular, these economic factors result in the vast majority of people experiencing homelessness in Santa Clara County being chronically homeless – unhoused for more than 1 year.
Research and data show us that our unhoused neighbors are more likely to be unsheltered, male and a long-term Santa Clara County resident. People living with disabilities and people of color are disproportionately represented among people experiencing homelessness, and most people identify economic factors, such as loss of job or an increase in rent, as the primary cause for becoming unhoused.
We often use the terms, “the unhoused,” or “the homeless” in discussions of homelessness in Silicon Valley, as if there were a uniformity in the ways people experience this condition. In fact, there is quite a variety among the nearly 10,000 people reported to have been unhoused in 2025—families with children, people with full-time jobs, individuals suffering mental illness and addiction, young people aging out of the foster-care system, older individuals whose social network broke down, or people who for any number of unanticipated emergencies could not make rent and were evicted from their housing. Similarly, homelessness in Silicon Valley occurs in different places — congregant overnight shelters, family shelters, tiny home communities, motels converted to housing through California’s “Homekey” initiative, sanctioned (and unsanctioned) car/rv parks, etc. with the majority of those living on the streets in what are called “encampments.”
Each year in Santa Clara County, local artist and advocate, Shaunn Cartwright, creates a tombstone for every person who loses their life while living outside. On October 29 and 30, 2026, the Unhoused Initiative at Santa Clara University hosted a representative display of the year’s tombstones on campus to raise awareness about homelessness and homeless mortality in Santa Clara County.
Symbols on the tombstones provide additional information about the person whose name you see.
- Purple Flower – Hispanic
- Blue Flower – Asian
- Yellow Flower – Black
- Orange Flower – White
- Pink Flower – Indigenous American
- White Flower – Race/Ethnicity unknown
- Green Leaves – Age 50+
- Snow Flake – Died of cold exposure
- Sunshine – Died of heat exposure
- Female Symbol – Identified as female
For more information and data about homeless mortality in Santa Clara County, including historical data and trends over time, the following data sets and reports are available:
- Homeless Mortality Dashboard, designed by Santa Clara University’s Department of Public Health Sciences (2011-2021)
- Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner Open Data Portal (2018-present)
- Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Dashboard (2018-present) (filter for Unhoused Deaths)
- Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner Homeless Death Review Reports
For more information about past displays of the memorial tombstones, the following articles are available:
Meet the Artists
John Betts
John Betts grew up in Palo Alto, CA, graduating high school in 1968. Inspired by his father, John has always identified with counter-culture and anti-war movements. He is a musician, fine artist and political cartoonist, as well as a handyman and painter. In 2008 John became unhoused and has been an advocate and activist for people experiencing homelessness ever since. John is a leader of Survivors of the Street, a San Jose-based grass roots organization of people with experience of homelessness advocating for unhoused residents of Santa Clara County.
Shaunn Cartwright
Shaunn Cartwright a long time local homeless advocate, and founder and director of the outreach organization, Unhoused Response Group (URG). In addition to almost daily distributions of supplies to people on the street, Shaunn collaborates with other advocates and non-profits to organize press conferences and protests on behalf of San Jose unhoused communities, and is a frequent contributor to San Jose Spotlight. For several years she has overseen the annual unhoused tombstone project, working with current and formerly unhoused individuals to prepare each year’s display during the memorial service. She too has spoken to SCU students, and looks forward to collaborating with SCU faculty on research into unhoused individuals’ deaths in the area.
Amanda Cole
Amanda Cole is a formerly unhoused senior living in Santa Clara County. She is a visual artist, art teacher and activist. Amanda is also leader of Survivors of the Street (SOS), a grass-roots organization in San Jose comprised of people who are or have been unhoused. SOS has a goal to house 10,000 people.
Shamira Dickerson
🎤 Singer & Rapper
🎶 Making my own music
✍🏽 Poet & songwriter
🙏🏽 Faith-driven
🎧 Turning my story into music
🚀 Just getting started
Gabriela Gabrian
Gabriela Gabrian is a writer, mental health mentor, and dedicated community advocate. Rooted in themes of personal resilience, memory, and transformation, her poetry bridges creative expression and civic engagement. Drawing on the power of spoken narrative. She serves on multiple community boards, championing grassroots advocacy through the art of authentic storytelling.
Art Hazelwood
For over 35 years Art Hazelwood has created art in the service of political struggles. In the early 1990s he began contributing artwork to the Street Sheet newspaper in San Francisco. Since then his involvement expanded to include protest posters, graphics for research papers, public art projects, recruiting artists to work on the issue, curating and organizing art exhibitions and writing about art and homelessness in two books, Hobos to Street People, and House Keys Not Handcuffs.
Hazelwood taught printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute where he joined the bargaining team for adjunct faculty and was elected Shop Steward. Out of this union struggle grew the San Francisco Poster Syndicate, which has grown from a project to fight for better conditions for student and faculty into a diverse group of political poster makers that has worked with dozens of unions, a wide array of activist groups, and brings live poster printing on the street to protests.
In 2017 the Coalition on Homelessness gave Hazelwood their Artwork as Revolution Award. In 2024 he was honored with the Art is a Hammer Award from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, the nation’s most prestigious award for political poster artists.
In 2021 UC Santa Cruz Special Collections established an archive of more than 300 of his political posters and prints.
He teaches drawing at San Quentin State Prison.
Liat Noten
Liat Noten (b. 1987, Be’er Ya’akov, Israel) is an artist, writer, and photographer based in San Jose, California. Her practice centers on photographing fabric in motion at slow shutter speeds to explore memory, perception, and the invisible marks that lived experience leaves behind.
Her interest in photography began in high school, and she has always been drawn to digital media as a means of creative expression, preferring to explore non-traditional digital processes. Noten studied literary journalism and art history at the University of California, Irvine. She has taught workshops at LATITUDE Chicago and the School of Visual Philosophy, focusing on Photoshop and digital image-making.
Her work has been exhibited at the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, California, and the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and is held in collections worldwide. In 2024, she completed a virtual residency with Buenos Aires-based FotoCreativaBA.
She has taught workshops at LATITUDE Chicago and the School of Visual Philosophy, focusing on the intuitive use of Photoshop. Her work has been exhibited at the Pacific Art League (Palo Alto, CA) and at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the world’s largest gathering of creative professionals. Her work has been collected worldwide. She is participating in the FotoCreativaBA residency to develop a new project. She currently lives in San Jose, California.
Nadine Zellner
Nadine Zellner has been an artist for years, providing lessons both for volunteer purposes and to financially support herself. She particularly works with vulnerable populations such as low-income individuals, special needs, unhoused, single-parents, and orphans. Nadine believes that through her art teaching efforts, she is able to foster wellness and community-building that celebrates diversity.
Nadine has been working with the non-profit United Effort since this March, receiving assistance with job and housing search, connecting to resources and mentorship. Nadine recently learned she is approved to move into a permanent housing unit and looks forward to this next chapter. You can find Nadine online at her e-shop, nadinezart.threadless.com, and on Instagram, @nadinezart, and you can contact her at nadinezart@gmail.com.
