Mobile Shower Program Adds Castro Stop

Lava Mae, the local nonprofit providing mobile showers and toilets to people who are homeless, has launched an ambitious expansion plan.

The organization, whose name is a play on the Spanish phrase "wash me," recently added a regular stop in the Castro, and has announced plans to more than double its local capacity and add additional services. It is a project of the Tides Center, a San Francisco-based foundation that provides fiscal sponsorship to implement programs that accelerate positive social change.

Beginning in late October, Lava Mae began regular service on Wednesday afternoons in the Castro, where its bright blue bus is parked in front of Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church at 100 Diamond Street, near 18th Street. The bus arrives at approximately 1:30 p.m. - guests are served beginning at 2 - and can accommodate several dozen people during its four-hour stop, said Michael McDowell, mobile services manager.

Michael Poma, the gay parish manager at Most Holy Redeemer, initiated the Castro stop last year.

"It's a perfect fit for us," Poma told the Bay Area Reporter

When Poma first read about Lava Mae last year, he immediately contacted the organization to see about a collaboration.

"They were over here talking to us the same week," he said.

Lava Mae's future plans include offering guests clean socks and other clothing and toiletries and medical and social services in "pop up care villages" that accompany the bus, founder and CEO Doniece Sandoval said in an interview with the B.A.R. Future expansion is planned throughout the state, with a pilot program planned for San Jose.

Lava Mae put its first retrofitted Muni bus on the road in June 2014, said Sandoval. It plans to add several more buses and a trailer to the fleet, she added.

The buses each have two spacious private showers and toilets that are cleaned between each guest, said Sandoval. Currently, they are available at five locations throughout the city (see sidebar for schedule) in the Mission, the Tenderloin, and Civic Center.

The group's rapid growth is reflected in its annual budget, which at $825,000 this year, is up from $350,000 in 2014, said Sandoval. Sandoval receives "minimum wage" but donates it back to Lava Mae, she said. There are now seven full-time employees, with two openings currently for positions as bus ambassadors. Two grants from Google, totaling $600,000, are enabling staff to conduct studies with their guests to guide future growth.

Lava Mae has gone from providing 40 showers a week in 2014 to more than 200 this year, with growth increasing every week as word spreads about the service, which is free.

For the past 14 years, MHR, as the church is also known, has supported the Wednesday Night Supper program, where volunteers serve a hot meal to over 100 guests a week, Poma said. Although the Lava Mae program has only been in operation two weeks, Poma said he has already received "enthusiastic feedback" from a number of regular dinner guests.

Although the Wednesday supper program is not focused on exclusively serving the gay community, at least half the dinner guests probably identify as LGBT, Poma said. When the program first began, it was intended to serve young LGBT homeless people who live in the Castro, he added.

While anyone is welcome at the program, Poma said that people must be on the formal list of "regulars" to be guaranteed a dinner, because the facility has a capacity of 112. Most weeks, they are at or near capacity.

"Nobody is turned away without something," he said, noting that volunteers also prepare approximately 250 sack lunches, which are distributed to dinner guests for the following day or to people who couldn't be accommodated, in lieu of a hot meal.

Poma emphasized that the Wednesday suppers have never been advertised, "because we don't want an influx of people" who we are unable to accommodate.

Last Wednesday, the B.A.R. spoke with staff, volunteers, and guests at the Lava Mae stop at MHR.

Leah Filler, Lava Mae's director of community engagement, said that she was the first person hired by founder Sandoval.

"I had been working as a restaurant server, just out of college, who hadn't figured out what I wanted to do," she said. "When I first read about what Doniece was doing, I called her and said, 'sign me up.' I want to help."

Filler said the Lava Mae program has received hundreds of inquiries from around the world, hoping to replicate the program. It hopes to produce an online tool kit to help people in other locations to provide similar services, she said.

First in line for a shower that day was Jimmy, who asked that his last name not be used, a 57-year-old homeless man, originally from New Jersey. He usually sleeps in nearby Jane Warner Plaza because, he explained, the property belongs to Muni and the police "can't touch us there."

Jimmy said he often showers at a community center in the Mission, so when he heard of Lava Mae, he urged the staff at Most Holy Redeemer to try to arrange for a Castro stop.

"Food is easier to find than a shower," he said. "This is great, really great and very much appreciated."

Jimmy said he prefers sleeping outdoors to staying in a shelter, "which often has bed bugs," he said.

"The worst part," about living outdoors, he added, "is not having a shower."

Jimmy said that programs like Lava Mae are needed more than ever because the number of homeless people continues to increase.

"It's the meth," he said referring to the commonly used street drug methamphetamine. "It's stronger, it's cheaper, and people are getting sicker," he said.

As for Lava Mae, Sandoval said the service is needed.

"When you think about the challenges to access water, you think about third world countries ... you don't think of the United States," she said. But thousands of San Franciscans, and hundreds of thousands of homeless throughout the country, are now struggling "just to get clean," she said. "This is no small task."