PRESS ROOM: RECENT ARTICLES

Homeless newspaper to launch in November

By: Derek Quizon
Published On: Thursday, October 29, 2009

Nonprofit leadership and management senior Hugo Polanco’s new internship as a photographer for an upstart newspaper isn’t what one might call prestigious, but he said he couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.

Polanco was hired this month as the staff photographer for The Underwood, a newspaper written by Christopher Kinch, a homeless man and resident at the Central Arizona Shelter Services’ Human Services campus in Phoenix. The publication is targeted toward Arizona’s homeless community.

After a six-month run in a newsletter format, St. Vincent de Paul, a charity organization running a kitchen on the Human Services Campus, gave Kinch the budget to expand to a glossy-cover tabloid format and hire a staff of writers, editors and one photographer.

The newspaper will be published monthly, but Kinch, who writes under the pen name Christopher Wren Robin, said he eventually hopes to start publishing weekly.

For Polanco, working on The Underwood gives him the opportunity to combine a love of photography with his desire to help those less fortunate than himself.

“Photography is a passion of mine, and I’ve worked at St. Vincent De Paul for two years now, [so] the cause is very important to me,” he said.

Kinch, who described himself as an entrepreneur who lost a fortune in the real estate market, began writing the newsletter in April. The first six newsletters, published monthly, were called The Arid Ariator, after the New Arid Club, a local nonprofit organization that provides alcoholics and drug addicts with counseling services

He used the organization’s offices to print out the three-page newsletter, fashioned newsstands out of cardboard and placed them around the Human Services campus.

The Ariator’s pages were full of advice columns, inspirational stories of recovery and resource listings for the homeless. The front page was highlighted by kitschy, alliterative headlines like, “Meditation Medication” and “Consider Considering This!”

Kinch said it was an instant hit with readers.

“Initially, it started as a newsletter about the New Arid Club,” Kinch said. “By the second issue, response was such that I started reporting on the campus’ goings-on.”

As readership grew, Kinch saw the opportunity to expand the newsletter, allowing him to generate more money from advertising. He pitched the idea to administrators of St. Vincent de Paul’s Opportunity Program, which provides job training for residents at the shelter.

“We are always looking for ways to help people not only find a job, but to help them become self-employed,” said St. Vincent de Paul’s director of operations Blayse Bova. “Christopher really has a shot at making a living out of this.”

Polanco, who works in the Opportunity Program, gave a copy of his portfolio to Kinch, who was immediately impressed.

“I saw his portfolio and thought, ‘yeah, this is exactly what we need,’” Kinch said. “I want covers that will get readers to look twice … his photos consistently made me look twice.”

In addition to Polanco, members of the Opportunity Program staff were recruited to become editors and staff writers. St. Vincent de Paul also hired an advertising consultant to find sponsors for the paper.

The finished product, scheduled for release in November, is a full-fledged newspaper with artwork, several new sections and advertisers, made up mostly of nonprofit organizations and low-income housing landlords.

Polanco said the expanded newspaper will allow homeless people to get in touch with the variety of services offered to them by nonprofit organizations and the government.

“It’s essentially a resource guide,” Polanco said. “There are a lot of resources for the homeless, but many don’t know about them.”

Kinch said The Underwood will provide its target audience, many of whom are homeless and struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, with something more important — hope.

“People crash, and some of them want to know that there is a way out,” Kinch said. “I started the paper to give [the homeless] that ray of hope.”

Eventually, Kinch hopes to generate enough money to move into an apartment of his own, which he plans to do by the end of 2009.

Polanco has his own plans for The Underwood, including a series of portraits of homeless people, each accompanied by a caption that answers the question, “What makes you laugh?”

“It seems like a silly question, but it’s a human element that I think people will connect with,” Polanco said. “It’s easy to see the homeless as non-humans. It’s easy to see the on the street corner and ignore them.”

Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.