Volunteers in Santa Clara County organized Sunday to create headstones for the unhoused who died in 2024.
Rosita Tolentino, 73, and 39-year-old Maha Patra are just two of the more than 200 unhoused people who died in Santa Clara County this year, according to the Tombstone Project. The project began five years ago to make sure unhoused people are not forgotten.
"It's a record number of Asians, babies, and people who died from hypothermia as well as females and blacks who died on the streets, said Shaunn Cartwright of the Tombstomb Project.
Amanda Colse survived living on the streets for 10 years and now wants to honor those who didn't make it.
"I do feel moved by people who die on the streets, and I want to be part of the solution of preventing that," she said
She wants to honor those like 14-year-old Jose Zamora. Zamora died by suicide after he was teased for being homeless at Santa Clara High School.
Cartwright said she believes sweeping homeless camps have played a role in the deaths so far.
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"As a society, as a city, and as a county, we are not doing enough to protect people, and when you are sweeping people," she said, "You are taking them out of the shelters they built that protect them from the elements, and the things keeping them warm are taken."
On December 20, the tombstones will be displayed at San Jose City Hall to call attention to the deaths and call for action to save the lives of unhoused people in the Bay Area.
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