58 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • JANUARY 25, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
buzz
Long Island City resident partners with celebs to
release book aimed at helping homeless New Yorkers
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com / @angelamatua
Long Island City resident Jordana
Guimaraes is using her connections in
the fashion and entertainment industry to
foster more compassion toward the city’s
homeless population.
Guimaraes, who founded ACL PR &
Marketing, said she felt compelled to
help people less fortunate than her from
a young age. Th e publicist grew up in
Brazil where the poverty was “unparalleled,”
she said.
“It was diffi cult for me even when was
2, 3, 4 years old. I would go out on the
streets with my mom and we’d be walking
to the supermarket and approached by
so many people that were homeless,” she
said. “I thought, how could I have everything
and this person have nothing?’”
Guimaraes, who started her career
working in press offi ces for large fashion
brands, decided to use her talents to
help emerging brands. Aft er working as a
freelancer, she decided to start ACL PR &
Marketing two years ago.
“My mom and my dad always made
a joke that I would never have money
because even when I started working and
making money I would give it all away,”
she said. “It was something that was
innate in me.”
In January 2017, Guimaraes began to
brainstorm how her connections in the
fashion and entertainment world could
help her put “a face and a name to the
homeless community.”
She began to do research on the city’s
homeless population and was shocked
by the number of people living below the
poverty line. According to a report by the
NYU Furman Center, approximately 1.7
million New Yorkers lived below the poverty
line from 2011 through 2015.
To combat the stereotypes associated
with homelessness, Guimaraes interviewed
75 homeless New Yorkers and
75 infl uencers like model Khoudia Diop
and “Th e Bachelorette” contestant Eric
Bigger to fi nd commonalities in each of
their stories.
“It Can Be You” will be a 75-page book
that features interviews and accompanying
photos. Th e stories of the infl uencers
and homeless New Yorkers will
be placed side by side “to showcase how
someone who is not homeless today and
is very famous and doing very well for
themselves and someone who is homeless
could have had the some issues in
life,” she said.
Last February, the Long Island City
resident started a GoFundMe page and
raised $10,000 to provide hot meals to
1,500 homeless New Yorkers. During this
event, she spoke to them about the struggles
they faced.
Th e New Yorkers she met were tackling
a myriad of problems, including mental
health and addiction issues and also
facing problems that were surprising to
Guimaraes.
She met several teenagers who had been
kicked out of their homes by parents dealing
with drug addiction or other issues.
“Th eir parents end up kicking them
out and the teenagers don’t have the
money to sustain a life of their own,” she
said.
Th e most surprising issue shared by
several people in the shelter system, she
said, were the people who became homeless
aft er struggling to pay off medical
bills.
“What shocked me the most I think is
health insurance,” she said. “A lot of of
people get very ill or have an illness that
needs to be treated. Th e bill came because
they didn’t have health insurance and
they ended up having a lot of diff erent
fi nancial diffi culties and ended up losing
their house.Th at’s something we should
never have to worry about.”
Guimaraes also met several people coping
with mental illness. A man she met at
the event was diagnosed with bipolar disorder
and was struggling to cope. Th ough
he was able to fi nd a job aft er moving into
a homeless shelter, the position pays only
$7 an hour, making it diffi cult for him to
save up for an apartment or other essentials.
“Th e big problem with homeless people
is that people now just ignore them,” she
said. “Th ey’ve become invisible because
there are so many of them.”
New York City has struggled to prevent
the homeless population from rising.
In October 2017, there were a reported
62,963 homeless people sleeping in the
city’s shelter system. Mayor Bill de Blasio
announced an initiative called Turning
the Tide on Homelessness in February
2017, which aims to keep more New
Yorkers in their homes and provide services
to those who aren’t able to avoid the
shelter system.
Th e book is only one part of Guimaraes’
larger initiative to help the homeless,
called Th e Nylon Project. She aims to turn
the project into a “fl agship for awareness
for all of these diff erent foundations that
sometimes homeless people don’t even
know exist.”
She’s partnering with Urban Pathways,
a nonprofi t that helps homeless New
Yorkers move into permanent housing,
Alexandria House, a transitional residence
for women and children in Los
Angeles, and other organizations catering
to homeless people.
Guimaraes is hoping to expand Th e
Nylon Project to cities and countries
around the world. Half of the proceeds
from “It Can Be You” will go directly to
these organizations and 50 percent will
help run other Nylon Project initiatives.
“I think that the more people this book
reaches, especially the millennials who
look up to these infl uencers, we’re really
just hoping that more people become
compassionate about this cause,” she said.
“It Can Be You” does not have an offi -
cial release date but will be available to
purchase sometime in February.
For more information, visit www.
thenylonproject1.com or the project’s
Facebook and Instagram pages @thenylonproject1.
Photos courtesy of Jordana Guimaraes
Long Island City resident Jordana Guimaraes will release a book to raise money for the homeless in
New York and in cities around the country.
