Hugh Rossback knows the importance of a shower.
While the homeless 50-year-old spends his nights near the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and California Boulevard in Pasadena, he is able to shower once a week when The Shower of Hope mobile shower facility operates behind Holy Family Church’s St. Joseph Center in South Pasadena.
“It makes a huge difference,” Rossback said. “Aside from my immediate benefit, it helps in my interactions with others. Homeless people are not usually known to be very hygienic.”
While Shower of Hope operates once a week in South Pasadena, it and another nonprofit organization, Lava Mae, will bring mobile shower facilities to other parts of the San Gabriel Valley thanks to a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors pilot program approved Tuesday.
Mel Tillekeratne, co-founder of Shower of Hope, said when people lose access to showers, they remove themselves from society because they become self-conscious about body odor, even shunning homeless service providers out of fear of judgment.
“It sounds really simple, but they start to love the person in the mirror again,” Tillekeratne said.
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