A homeless outreach group in Utah produces the calendars to raise awareness about the plight of the unhoused.
David Yorgason holds his son Kendall while being photographed by Zhon Johansen for the Nomad Alliance's “Sexy Nomad” calendar in Salt Lake City on Tues., Sept. 12, 2023. Marquis Heines sat shirtless in a wheelchair, hidden from the Utah sun under a scrap of tree shade.
“Imagine you’re chilling on the beach and you are about to seduce a beautiful woman!,” Kniazeva said. “Instead of ‘angry,’ I want your eyes to smile a little bit, a little passion in the eyes.”Kniazeva shot the model a thumbs up and Heines’s face exploded into a smile. The idea and vision behind the calendar is all Kniazeva’s, the organization’s director and only paid employee. Since starting the Nomad Alliance in 2020, Kniazeva has elbowed into the arena of Salt Lake City’s social services providers with unconventional tactics. “Sexy Nomads” is the most unorthodox — and controversial.
Nomad Alliance, incorporated as a nonprofit in February 2021, hosted frequent supply drives while also offeringLast winter, when Utah’s winter temperatures dipped below freezing, Kniazeva got ahold of a repurposed 2001 food truck, spread blankets across the seatless cabin and created a mobile warming station.
“I had really low self-esteem for a lot of my life. I never thought I was pretty until I was asked to step in-front of a camera,” she said. “It helped me realize that I have power and value and that I’m being seen and that I’m important. I wanted to give that to my friends on the street.”Kniazeva found professional photographers willing to shoot the calendar for free, and a printer who donated materials and time for the production.
Kniazeva said the calendar sold only 35 copies at $40 per calendar. But she argued that the project acted more as the organization’s calling card, something to hand out to everyone from local and statewide politicians to the police officers who regularly patrol encampments. The images served as a reminder that each homeless individual was a unique person with his own story.
As the donations were underway, Mills said Kniazeva asked her husband to pose for the Sexy Nomad calendar. Mills said the couple did not feel like they could say no when the organization had done so much for them. “He was coerced into doing those photos,” she said. “He didn’t want to do those.” “We are treating all concerns with the utmost seriousness and are presently in the process of evaluating this complaint in accordance with the state’s established policies and procedures,” Nielson said.Kniazeva said “it was never a condition of working with them to be on the calendar.” She said that Nomad Alliance will won’t use the photo’s of Mills’s husband per the family’s request.
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