Reaping Reading Material for the Homeless

Flip through a glossy magazine such as Architectural Digest and it doesn’t offer much for a reader who sleeps on the street. Here’s actor Rob Lowe chatting about the feng shui of his orchid-filled home and the “prosperity zone” in his pool house. A Santa Barbara company advertises custom-made patio umbrellas.

So for Michelle Brooks, who spends much of her day at the Midnight Mission shelter on Skid Row, what is the appeal of home and garden mags?

“I like to see the houses,” she said. “I like the rental magazines, to see all the places to stay.”

For Willie Green, it’s sports. If he finds a copy of Sports Illustrated, Green will guard it like gold.

“It gives us something to take our minds off the troubles,” he said.

The magazines are in Brooks’ and Green’s hands--and the hands of the homeless in 1,000 shelters across the country--because of a group of Westside high school students. One of them, 18-year-old Ashley Peterson, started ReREAD in 1998 to replace the outdated magazines she saw in shelters and soup kitchens with recent editions, to help the homeless connect to the outside world and “escape their reality.”

“Our guests have a tendency to be depressed and have a rough time as it is, and they don’t want to read any more about that,” said Carrie Gatlin, program director at the Midnight Mission in downtown Los Angeles. The mission receives about 150 magazines in each shipment--more than any other program in the ReREAD network.

ReREAD mails about 10,000 recent magazines every month or six weeks to shelters, halfway houses and other programs for the down-and-out in California, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Washington state. People magazine is probably the most popular title. “It’s an easy read, lots of pictures,” Gatlin explained. Parenting magazines are also favorites, particularly at women’s shelters, and so are ethnic magazines, such as Ebony and Latina.

Not all of the magazines’ readers pick up the periodicals to fantasize about exotic travel and sumptuous feasts. For Daniel Reed, a recovering drug addict who just completed paralegal training, magazines such as U.S. News & World Report are a tool for learning.

“I’ll find a word or a phrase that I’m not used to seeing and I’ll go and look it up,” said Reed, one of the few Midnight Mission residents who do not have televisions. Instead, his bed in the 170-man dormitory is boxed in by books and magazines.

“I like The New Yorker,” said Reed, 38. “It has more depth than a lot of the pop magazines.”

But in the parlance of publishing, you could say ReREAD is up for renewal. Peterson and all but two of her 12 “staff” members--actually her closest friends--have just graduated and are off to college. That means they won’t be around for the monthly sortings in Peterson’s parents’ garage, and they will be too busy to hit up local corporations and individuals to pay for postage.

So how does a charitable group go on when the energy behind it cannot?

ReREAD gets its magazines from publishers that donate their surplus, and from individuals who drop off titles at bins in Starbucks Coffee stores, Gelson’s supermarkets and other outlets. But it is the fund-raising that takes the most time, Peterson said. ReREAD needs $40,000 to $45,000 annually to pay for its mailings and other expenses.

“It’s just the most difficult part,” she said.

Finding volunteers to help periodically has not been difficult because students can fulfill their schools’ community-service requirements in two or three weekend mailings. Finding leaders to commit more time, though, has been a challenge.

Contrary to research showing those in her generation are quick to volunteer in their communities, Peterson said she has found many young people “don’t really feel the need to give back or to work hard.”

As its Web site, https://www.reread.org, attests, ReREAD has received all sorts of awards and attention. Peterson herself has been profiled on “Inside Edition” and Channel One, the television network beamed to 8 million students in their classrooms. She will enter Harvard University in September and hopes to work there on a national policy to address homelessness.

In spring, ReREAD’s leaders e-mailed students who had volunteered occasionally for the group’s magazine mailings and posted fliers at the four high schools that have supplied the most volunteers: Beverly Hills High, Windward in West Los Angeles, Marlborough in Hancock Park and Peterson’s alma mater, Harvard-Westlake in Studio City. From those pleas, 15 students applied to run ReREAD next year, Peterson said.

“I don’t have concerns that it won’t continue,” she said.

Peterson recently tapped the organization’s next president: ReREAD’s vice president, her 16-year-old brother, Chris. His appointment somewhat dims the prospect for parking in the Petersons’ garage.

“Hopefully there will be a complete transition out of the garage,” she said. “That would be ideal.”