Homeless ​“Shower Power” Rolls Into Town

Two days after losing her housing, DeeDee DeStefano found a place to wash off right in the Fair Haven neighborhood where she spends most of her time — thanks to a mobile van newly contracted by the city to provide showers, along with wraparound services, to unsheltered New Haveners.

The van, run by a Bronx-based non-profit called Power In A Shower, includes four units — one of which is wheelchair accessible — each with a shower and an area to change. It will be available for use on the New Haven Green on Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., the Ella T. Grasso Boulevard soccer field on Tuesdays from noon to 2:30 p.m., and outside Fair Haven’s Una Iglesia Para La Ciudad at 99 East Pearl St. on Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The city is pairing the shower van with the Yale Community Health Van and outreach workers from Liberty Community Services and Cornell Scott Hill, who can provide medical care, harm reduction services such as a needle exchange program, and personal protective equipment for Covid-19, among other resources.

On Friday morning, Liberty staff handed out packages of socks, handwarmers, fig newtons, and at-home Covid tests to clients. 

DeStefano was one of the first people to use the shower on Friday morning, after stumbling upon the van by accident. She has a warm rapport with city staffers and outreach workers, whom she greeted from behind her studded sunglasses.

She arrived with a plastic bag of clothes in hand — and an affiliate of Una Iglesia Para La Ciudad offered her a bag of additional garments, which she accepted with a ​“Thank you, I love you!” 

The shower initiative grew out of other recent programs that the city has implemented during the pandemic for unsheltered New Haveners and others who can benefit from drop-in resources.

Velma George, the city’s homeless services coordinator, said at a press conference outside the van on Friday morning that the pandemic led the city to ​“pivot” its strategy for addressing homelessness to focus on permanent housing solutions as well as the urgent needs of unsheltered residents. 

In 2020, New Haven established a pop-up tent on Blake Field with Covid-19 resources and allowed members of the public to use showers at East Rock Magnet School. The city has also built out nine ​“navigation hubs” in various neighborhoods where people can stop by without an appointment and receive food, case management, and other resources. The hubs are ​“a place where they can rest off their feet, plug in their phones, get a meal,” George said.

Liberty Community Services Director Jim Pettinelli praised the city for taking a ​“housing first” approach to homelessness. He noted that ​“our true goal will be closing the doors to this shop” — and providing permanent access to homes, with showers, for the van’s clients.

“A strategy with outreach is to relieve discomfort,” said Silvia Mocariello, the program director at Liberty Community Services. Shower access can lift a small weight off of a client’s shoulders, she said.

“How many of us have had a bad day, and then taken that nice hot shower and felt good again?” Phil Costello, an outreach worker with Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, asked rhetorically.

DeeDee DeStefano arrived at the van outside Una Iglesia Para La Ciudad after a devastating week. She said that two days prior, she had gotten evicted from the Ninth Square apartment where she’d lived for a year. DeStefano first moved into that apartment with help from the state’s Rental Assistance Program. A survivor of domestic violence, she had been homeless before living there, moving between the streets and shelters.

“I fought too hard to get my housing,” DeStefano said. She believes she got evicted because she had been allowing unsheltered friends to stay and shower at her place periodically, although she doesn’t know for sure; there is no official court case filed against her. She has spent the past two days wandering around, too afraid to sleep, she said.

Once DeStefano showered, she reported that the water was ​“a little cold,” although not too bad.

George checked in with her about the temperature, asking if DeStefano had figured out how to twist the hot water dial.

When DeStefano replied that she hadn’t, George responded that she would ask the van staff to show clients how to change the water temperature next time.

“I’m coming next Friday,” DeStefano said, and promised to spread the word, now that she no longer has a shower of her own to offer up to others.

Marta Lopez also plans to tell the unsheltered people she knows about the van. Lopez has been housed for the past three years. The program has inspired her to attend services at Una Iglesia Para La Ciudad, whose role as a host site for Power In A Shower impressed her. While she’s about to start a job as a cook with Turnbridge, a rehabilitation center, she spends her spare time volunteering with Cornell Scott Hill’s outreach workers — a job that she approaches with memories of her own life experience.

“We used to go to McDonald’s and do bird baths,” Lopez described. The van is a sign that things are getting better for people living on the streets, she said. ​“This would have been something I would have been looking forward to,” she said.