Clean Start Showers Brings Radical Hospitality® to Concord, CA
July 23, 2021
While building a custom mobile shower trailer, Clean Start Showers turns to LavaMaeˣ on how to launch and deliver Radical Hospitality® to people experiencing homelessness in Concord, California
The Clean Start Showers backstory
Volunteers at The Bay Church in Concord, Calif., had long dreamed of bringing mobile showers to unhoused people in their community but didn’t have the funds or expertise to make the dream a reality. After years of overseeing a project that provided free laundry services to these neighbors, Church Compassion Director Carey Gregg’s prayers were answered in 2017, when she received a $100,000 donation without any direction on how to allocate the money. Shortly after, Bay Church congregants Dana and Marius Rotariu volunteered their construction expertise and Clean Start Showers was born.
The trio’s first challenge was designing the truck that would house the showers. Marius spent hours making a budget, researching how similar groups had designed their trailers, and sketching out his ideas. Clean Start Showers had obtained a sizable car hauler to outfit for service, and Marius knew he wanted to take advantage of the space, giving guests room to stow luggage and other personal items and to shelter pets while they showered. He even turned the extra platform space into a barbershop station.
Marius was well into his trailer design when one of his volunteers sent him LavaMaeˣ founder Doniece Sandoval’s Radical Hospitality TEDTalk. Instantly inspired, Marius reached out and arranged to bring a group to a LavaMaeˣ workshop in Oakland, Calif., on launching and running mobile shower services.
Mutual support: How LavaMaeˣ and Clean Start Showers help each other
One of Clean Start’s most valuable takeaways from the workshop was adopting Radical Hospitality®, LavaMaeˣ’s approach of meeting people wherever they are with extraordinary care. While Clean Start’s volunteers already approached their services with this mentality, putting a name to the concept helped leaders integrate it into every aspect of their program, from recruiting volunteers to offering guests their choice of personal hygiene products.
The Clean Start team also benefited from de-escalation training, something they hadn’t even realized they needed. The group doesn’t often encounter hostility, but sometimes guests get antsy while waiting in line for their turn to shower, and thanks to LavaMaeˣ‘s training, Clean Start staff are well equipped to keep tempers from flaring.
And while the city of Martinez has welcomed Clean Start with open arms, the group has encountered pushback from nearby cities that want to experiment with offering mobile showers but don’t want to commit.
“Some people shy away from committing to something like this because of NIMBYism,” says Dana. “But we always say no to requests for short-term trial runs of our services. We adopted our 12-week model from LavaMaeˣ because that’s the minimum amount of time you need to make a service stick. We need to build trust with guests and you can’t do that quickly. There has to be some courage to try this long term. Some cities just aren’t there yet.”
LavaMaeˣ‘s advice has been crucial to navigating such tricky situations, Carey notes. “Without them, we’d be reinventing the wheel. We went into this with a dream and Marius had the design. But after the build, LavaMaeˣ helped us get started by sharing their knowledge and offering an ongoing backbone of support. Just being able to pick up the phone at a moment’s notice and ask any question under the sun has relieved the huge burden of having to know or search for all the answers ourselves.”
Annie Stickel, Clean Start’s relationship manager at LavaMaeˣ, is happy to provide support however she can. “I’m here to help them work through anything from how to react when a guest wants you to watch their kids to how they’re supposed to dump the post-shower water to being bogged down by fundraising challenges or even just having a bad week,” she says.
Clean Start has been a valuable resource to LavaMaeˣ as well, especially during the pandemic. Annie says neither LavaMaeˣ nor any of the care providers it has trained were sure how to deal with COVID-19 hygiene, but Carey had a solution. Clean Start had asked a county doctor to inspect its trailer for potential health and safety risks. Carey developed safety protocols based on the doctor’s feedback and shared it with LavaMaeˣ‘s global network.
Marius and Carey are also active on LavaMaeˣ Connect, a free platform where service providers worldwide can access curated events, do-it-yourself toolkits, community discussions and troubleshooting support from LavaMaeˣ and other Connect members.
“Clean Start’s openness and willingness to share ideas makes them an especially valuable member of the LavaMaeˣ network,” says Stickel. “They’re great communicators, which is important because this kind of work can leave you feeling very isolated and lonely without a support system. Clean Start is one of our longest-running LavaMaeˣ-trained care provider relationships, and it’s been really rewarding to be a part of their amazing work for so long and to watch them grow.”
The big win: Restoring hope by showing up
The bottom line of Clean Start’s impact comes down to the relationships it has built with its community and guests.
Martinez City Council members have been some of Clean Start’s staunchest supporters. Former Martinez, Calif., Vice Mayor Noralea Gipner championed the cause and told Carey she wanted the pilot in her city at any cost. Martinez Police Chief Manjit Sappal threw his support behind the initiative as well, along with members of the Contra Costa County Health Services department and county Coordinated Outreach Referral, Engagement officers, whose job is to build relationships with unhoused people and connect them with services. These officers partner with Clean Start to provide on-site no-questions-asked help with finding access to housing, hospitalization, benefits and more.
Beyond this holistic approach, which serves guests from many angles, Carey emphasizes that the true key to their success is openness and abandoning all assumptions. “The best advice I can give to someone else who wants to serve this population is to ask a lot of questions,” she says. “Find out what people need. Don’t assume anything and be as transparent as possible. Remember: It’s a choice to dignify someone’s humanity.”
The results have been overwhelmingly positive.
Carey describes talking with a young woman just weeks ago who came in for care and was barely able to form a coherent sentence. Carey sat down with her and asked how she was doing. She said she wanted to kill herself. After a brief exchange, Carey brought the woman to the health services workers, who later told Carey that she ended up taking a shower before leaving in an ambulance to receive care. “I was so grateful to be able to provide an environment where she felt comfortable enough to enter a new mindset and accept help,” says Carey.
Some people don’t even use the showers. They just take advantage of the private space to be alone. “One gentleman recently spent his 15 minutes in the trailer and came out not having showered, but went to see health services afterwards,” says Carey. “Even though he didn’t use our services as we intended, I was glad he got what he needed out of his time with us.”
Dana says there’s something special about watching someone step out of a shower and say, “Wow, this is what it feels like to be normal.” But it’s also bigger than one organization and one person. She says a single shower may or may not make a difference—but continuing to show up and provide a reliable service can mean the world to a population that is so often taken advantage of or ignored.
“Success,” she continues, “doesn’t mean numbers. There are days when we provide 45 showers and that’s huge. There are also days we provide three showers. We consider these days to be just as much of a win. Success is showing up week after week and serving with a cheerful heart that puts a smile on someone’s face. People need a little hope. If we can give it to them, that’s success.”
Clean Start Showers profile
Home base: The Bay Church in Concord, Calif. thebay.church
Team: 1 staff member and 24 rotating volunteers
Mobile units: One shower trailer with four rooms, each with shower, toiletries, sink, toilet, chair and shelf. The trailer also includes an attached barbershop station with two chairs.
Services: Two weekly shower stops; one at the West Pittsburg Community Church (Tuesdays) and one on city-owned property in Martinez (Fridays)
Year-to-date guests served: 993 people served January–June 2021
Radical Hospitality tips and lessons
Build relationships with local officials and community members who will champion your cause and build goodwill.
“Success doesn’t mean numbers.…Success is showing up week after week and serving with a cheerful heart that puts a smile on someone’s face.”—Dana Rotariu
“The best advice I can give to someone else who wants to serve this population is to ask a lot of questions. Find out what people need. Don’t assume anything and be as transparent as possible. Remember: It’s a choice to dignify someone’s humanity.”—Carey Gregg