been violated while showering in shelters.
The LavaMaex bathrooms are small but effi-
cient: a shower stall lined with a dotted blue
curtain, a toilet, a bench, a mirror, a small
sink, and a bottle of Right to Shower body
wash. Right to Shower, a personal care brand
owned by Unilever, donates the wash to all
of LavaMaex’s mobile showers. The company
also donates 30 percent of its gross profits
to fund LavaMaex’s operational costs (the rest
is provided by grants and donations).
The warm water, rich lather, and beauti-
ful scents are spirit-lifting and life-affirming.
And so is the thick door that each guest can
lock behind them. It’s a security measure,
yes, but it’s also a barrier to the outside
world for those who may feel like they live
in a state of permanent exposure but still
have a right to cleanliness and a few quiet
moments in total privacy.
So? Has Mariposa actually danced naked
in a LavaMaex shower?
She smiles. “I have.”one might navigate a huge trailer with three
full bathrooms down city streets.
The nonprofit eventually trademarked its
approach to serving the unhoused as “Radical
Hospitality.” Over the past six years, LavaMaex
says it has provided roughly 78,000 showers
to 30,000 guests—they are always referred
to as guests—in San Francisco, Oakland, and
Los Angeles. “I treat everybody like I would
treat anybody else: without pity,” says Annie
Stickel-Rice, who helps manage guests and
runs LavaMaex’s initiative to teach other com-
munities how to copy its model and support
their unhoused populations.
“It’s like starting fresh again,” Wilson
says. “I’m a clean person—a clean freak.
Their water is therapy for me.” Wilson is a
San Francisco native who says she was left
without a home after she was evicted from
her apartment three years ago. “I am almost
at the end of this fight because I was just
granted a Section 8 voucher [which pro-
vides federal assistance to pay for hous-
ing],” says Wilson. Once the assistance
comes through, she plans on relocating to
Queens, New York, with her teenage daugh-
ter and son, with whom she has not lived
since the eviction.
Calipso Mariposa, an unhoused woman
from Mississippi, eats, showers, and meets
with a therapist during her time at the Pop-Up
Care Village. “If you want to dance in there
naked, you can,” she says, articulating one
of the most beloved features of the trailer: a
sense of safety. Mariposa, like many women
experiencing homelessness, says she has
From top: Rivera
and his Maltipoo,
Luna, being
groomed in the
barbershop tent;
inside the mobile
showers, guests
always find a
Right to Shower
sulfate-free wash
that can be used
on the body
and hair. This one,
Strength, has an
invigorating scent
of citrus, saffron,
and coffee.