LA’s mobile shower program faced cuts. Then the community pushed back

The Shower of Hope was facing cuts that could have left parts of Los Angeles without mobile shower services. Supporters spoke up, flooding city officials with emails and showing up to advocate for the program. The result: The program kept its funding and secured money for two new sites. 

The mobile shower program has served unhoused communities across Los Angeles since 2017. 

Volunteer coordinator Emma Zander, spoke with The LA Local about the importance of the Shower of Hope and the need to push back against stereotypes about unhoused people and homelessness.

“I think that people have such a narrow view of what an unhoused person is,” Zander explained. “The truth is, these showers are serving everyone from senior citizens with multiple jobs who are just trying to make ends meet to community college kids who are living in their cars.”

For Zander, the fight over funding this year underscored how much local access matters to the people who rely on it. “The transformation that you see from someone walking into the shower versus coming out is so much more than being physically clean, it’s palpable, it’s life changing for them.”

Here’s how the fight unfolded.

The fight to save Shower of Hope

The threat surfaced in late April, when a Facebook post from Shower of Hope warned that several of its programs had been cut or would not be funded.

The post said showers serving Highland Park, Lincoln Park, Hollenbeck Park and Cypress were affected. It also said the organization’s two safe parking programs, in Westlake/Pico-Union and Glassell Park, would not be funded.

The organization urged supporters to attend a City Council meeting and contact city officials to ask them to preserve the programs.

Advocates across Los Angeles organized an email campaign to help people make their voices heard and reach city officials who could potentially reverse the cuts.

That collective action worked. Not only did community pressure preserve the Shower of Hope’s threatened programs, it helped secure funding for two additional sites in Studio City. Zander announced the news in a post on Instagram, ending months of uncertainty for the program.

“This really proves to me that small actions can make such a huge difference,” Zander said.

Why access matters

It wasn’t the first time the program had faced funding challenges. Shower of Hope founder Mel Tillekeratne reported to his Instagram followers last year that the organization had already lost funding for some of its programs.

Tillekeratne told The LA Local that this year’s potential cuts could have eliminated access to the program in Northeast Los Angeles.

While downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row has long been the focus of centralized homeless services, advocates say programs elsewhere in the county are also essential — and losing them can ripple outward. Without local access, people in need would have to navigate an already overcrowded system and travel across town just to reach a shower.

“And then we have to look at how that’s going to impact Skid Row too, because that’s another additional influx of people coming into Skid Row,” Tillekeratne explained.

Zander argues the program offers communities more than a hygiene resource.

“Being able to present yourself in a way that you feel proud of is about restoring dignity,” Zander said. “That can help so much more than you think, because suddenly people feel more comfortable sitting across from an interviewer at a job interview or taking those next steps in their life and going to advocate for themselves.”