fresh
start
WHEN IS A
SHOWER MORE
THAN A
SHOWER? WHEN
IT’S 15 MINUTES
TO WASH AWAY
HOPELESSNESS
AND LATHER
YOURSELF IN
DIGNITY. BY
ELISSA STRAUSS
B
A
C
K
G
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N
D
B
E
A
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T
Y
About five times a year, a plaza in down-
town San Francisco transforms into what,
from a distance, could be mistaken for
a block party. A New Orleans–style jazz
band swells and clangs from a stage.
Small groups make themselves comfort-
able at colorful bistro tables, their plates
heaped with food from the hot buffet
table. A crowd trickles through, a few peo-
ple greeting each other by name. Some
stop at the massage chairs; others drift by
the acupuncture or meditation stations.
But the main draw here is the blue-
and-white trailer parked down the
block. That trailer is the centerpiece of
a San Francisco–based nonprofit called
LavaMaex whose mission is, simply and
radically, to “transform the way communi-
ties around the world see and serve their
unhoused neighbors.” And they do that by
hosting events like this one and providing
weekly shower services to those expe-
riencing homelessness in the Bay Area
and Los Angeles. (LavaMaex is a play on
“lávame,” Spanish for “wash me.”) Thanks
Clockwise from
top: One of the
mobile shower
trailers; a guest
brushing her hair;
Skylar “Sky
Full of Starz” and
Kotton Kandie,
who met through
a LavaMaex event
and later got
engaged at one of
their Pop-Up
Care Villages.
photographed by rachel bujalski
