Twice a week in St. Louis, at around 5 p.m., a line begins to form in front of a truck. The people waiting are all homeless. Most haven’t had a shower in over a month, but that’s what awaits them when they reach the front of the line.
Since it officially launched in May, the Shower to the Peopletruck has been making its way around St. Louis, docking in various locations on Monday and Thursday evenings. The project’s founder, Jake Austin, says that in a typical five-hour shift, as many as 50 people queue up for a shower, and they’re able to accommodate all of them. By the end of August, Austin hopes to expand services to four nights a week, and stretch the shifts out to eight hours.
In 2014, Austin was volunteering with the homeless population in St. Louis, sitting behind a table and handing out supplies—mostly food, but occasionally soap and shampoo. As Austin passed out the toiletries, one man thanked him, but said he had nowhere to actually put them to use. While the homeless shelters in St. Louis are equipped with showers, they’re usually only open to official residents of the shelters, as opposed to those who may drop in to use the amenities. According to the most recent tally from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,around 17 percent of the homeless population in Missouri is unsheltered; they make use of public fountains and sinks in libraries and parks, or wash in the river, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
[For more of this story, written by Ellie Anzilotti, go to http://www.citylab.com/navigat...the-homeless/495500/]
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