By Rupert Clayton, HANC Board
HANC’s March meeting heard from two people whose organizations are working to bring comfort and cleanliness to homeless people in San Francisco, and potentially the Haight Ashbury.
Doniece Sandoval is the executive director of Lava Mae, which provides mobile showers in a converted former MUNI bus. The bus has two self-contained bathrooms, each with a shower, toilet, sink and hair dryer. Being able to take a shower helps people who are homeless retain some sense of dignity and self-worth, making it easier for them to engage with housing, health care and job training services. The service also brings broader benefits for sanitation and public health in the city.
At each location, the bus hooks up to a fire-hydrant, with disinfected grey water discharged into catch basins and the toilets emptied by a waste disposal company. With 15-minute sessions, each bus can serve 42 people during a six-hour shift. Lava Mae’s forward bathroom is accessible, thanks to the bus’s wheelchair lift, and they have found that 48% of customers have a disability. Buses are always staffed during service hours, and Lava Mae works closely with existing agencies and non-profits so that people have somewhere to wait before their shower and can find out about services they may need.
Right now, Lava Mae has one bus, serving locations in the Tenderloin and Mission on four days of the week. The non-profit is looking to expand its fleet to four by the end of 2015 and bring its operation to other neighborhoods. There are currently no showers for the homeless west of Van Ness Ave, and Lava Mae would like to serve the Haight at least one day a week. The non-profit has been looking at locations including the DMV parking lot on Baker between Oak and Fell and the Waller Street bike training area on Stanyan next to Kezar Pavilion.
The other featured speaker was Sam Dodge, who conceived and runs the Tenderloin Pit-Stop program for the Department of Public Works. At each of three locations, the Pit Stop provides a pair of portable airplane-style toilets mounted on a trailer, along with a safe disposal box for needles and a dispenser for dog waste bags. Again, Pit Stop is a staffed service, with each location operating between 2 and 9pm, Tuesday through Friday. The program started as a six-month pilot in June 2014 and requests for “steamer” services to clean sidewalks dropped from an average of 27 to 15 per day during that period. Supervisors voted in January to extend the program through June 30 and add a fourth location in South of Market.
Both Lava Mae and the Pit-Stop program are showing that a smart, staffed approach to sanitation can improve the lives of people on our streets as well as the quality of our neighborhoods.