Judge Carter memorialized in mural on new Santa Ana Homeless Shelter.

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Late last night someone called “Zao Art” posted on Facebook:

Last month Faces of Santa Ana gets a call on a Wednesday to meet with city counsel. We’re in a meeting on a Friday, they tell us about a Homless shelter being built and would love a mural. Final artwork needs to be completed by Monday and start painting Tuesday. 3500 sq.ft. mural needs to be complete by Friday so flooring can go in. No problem we got this. Little lunch meeting with Brian and some prayer and we started thinking of how to honor U.S. District Judge David O. Carter.  A 200-bed temporary homeless shelter opened Thursday as part of an ongoing legal dispute launched by homeless advocates against several Orange County cities.

The Link will house homeless men, women and families and provide various support services to connect them with permanent housing.
Faces of Santa Ana and I are so freakin grateful and thankful that the city of Santa Ana would call on us to get this mural done. Thank you Santa Ana and Judge Carter for your amazing hearts for the poor and the broken-hearted. #mercyhouse #santaana #facesofsantaana #zaoone #isaiah61 #mtncolors #mtn94 @ Santa Ana, California

Here’s a video where you can see the whole piece of work:

Posted by Zao Art on Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Well, what can we say?  We love it, and we think Judge Carter has done a great job on this issue this year.  Also kudos to Mayor Pulido for getting this one shelter done so quickly – I remember him boasting about it at a Carterpalooza a couple of months ago, daring any other cities to get one done as quick as he could – and he kept his word!

Still, you know us, we’re going to have a little quibble or more, and that’s with what’s called “The Great Man Theory of History”  – Judge Carter played his role admirably, but there would have been no cases for him to preside over, and there would have been a lot more of our homeless population dead by now, if it weren’t for the 2 or 3 dozen grass-roots ADVOCATES pushing for justice and humanity these last four or five years.  Some of them are in the picture below, although notably it doesn’t include a few of the biggest heroes:  Lou Noble, R Joshua Collins, Tim Houchen, Mohammad Aly.  [more coming on the homelessness and shelter issue…]

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About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.