Photographer Lea Del Pomo stands by her photographs of homeless people during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo discusses the arrangement of her photographs of homeless people with art installer Sergio Cruz during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo, right, views her photographs of homeless people as art installer Natalie Narweiss aranges some of the prints during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo chats about her exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo, center, discusses the arrangement of her photographs of homeless people with art installers Sergio Cruz, left, and Natalie Narweiss during the installation of Del Pomo's exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo kneels by her photographs of homeless people during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first-floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
People at the Marin County Civic Center view photographer Lea Del Pomo's exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," in San Rafael, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographic prints by photographer Lea Del Pomo are laid out before being placed on the walls of the Marin County Civic Center's first-floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Ron Corral Jr. of Novato pauses to view one of the photographs in photographer Lea Del Pomo's exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Ron Corral Jr. of Novato, left, chats with photographer Lea Del Pomo's at her exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," in the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif. on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo views one of her photographs of homeless people during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photos from photographer Lea Del Pomo's exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," hang in the third-floor gallery of the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif. on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo views her photographs of homeless people during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photographer Lea Del Pomo views photos in her exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Photos from photographer Lea Del Pomo's exhibit, "I Will Not Be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness," hang in the first-floor gallery of the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
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Photographer Lea Del Pomo stands by her photographs of homeless people during the installation of her exhibit at the Marin County Civic Center's first floor gallery in San Rafael, Calif. on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
More than 50 photographs of homeless people and formerly homeless people from across Marin County are on display at the Civic Center.
The exhibit — titled “I Will Not be Forgotten: The Dignity in Homelessness” — was curated by the Marin County Department of Cultural Services and the Marin Cultural Association. The title refers to a message written on a portable toilet below a San Rafael overpass.
San Rafael photographer Lea Del Pomo, a retired Marin County employment counselor, took the pictures.
“This has always been my interest: people who are isolated, who we may not give voice to, and maybe aren’t seen and are invisible,” she said. “For me, they are some of the most important people to meet.”
The people in the images are only identified by their first names to respect their privacy. Some of the photographs come with written statements about their subjects.
Pairs of the subjects’ shoes have been placed below the photographs, prompting viewers to consider what it’s like to walk in their shoes.
Tennis shoes that belong to a man named Matt are below a portrait of him proudly gazing straight at the camera. He lived under a Highway 101 overpass in San Rafael and slept in the last tent left on Fifth Avenue after an encampment was closed there.
“He was tired, cantankerous and abandoned,” Charlotte Gonnella, the man’s former case manager at the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin County, wrote in a story next to his photograph.
Gonnella wrote about helping Matt achieve his goal of moving into an apartment.
“Now the landlord at his complex calls me when a unit comes available, hoping they will get another Matt,” Gonnella wrote.
Other profiled people include a couple who lost their Petaluma house and ended up living in a recreational vehicle parked along Binford Road in Novato. There is also a mother who moved her family into a car after losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of the portraits were printed on large tarps that can easily be rolled up and moved. Pictures are rigged by ropes attached to sandbags. Libby Garrison of the Marin County Department of Cultural Services said the exhibit’s setup evokes the “impermanence” of housing.
Del Pomo said many of the subjects were employed.
“There are people on the walls who have been housed and then there are people who worked in our community, so you could not tell the difference between them and any of us,” she said. “We all have a commonality of the human condition — our hopes, our sorrows, our joys and our need for community.”
A survey this year counted 1,100 homeless in Marin County this year, a 2% decrease from a survey in 2022.
Gary Naja-Riese, a county homelessness official, reflected on Del Pomo’s exhibit.
“Any one of us can face homelessness, due to life circumstances — whether through loss of health, relationships or shelter,” he said. “This exhibit serves as a poignant reminder that homelessness does not define a person. It underscores the importance of compassion and collective efforts to restore dignity and rebuild lives.”
Novato resident Ron Corral Jr. viewed the exhibit after dropping off his ballot at the Civic Center on Tuesday. He said he worked with homeless clients at the Marin Health and Wellness Campus in San Rafael.
“These stories need to be made known,” Corral said.
The exhibit will be displayed through Jan. 31 in the first- and third-floor galleries of the Civic Center, which is at 3501 Civic Center Drive in San Rafael.
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