Case Study: Mobile Community Shower & Wellness Services in New York City
April 19, 2023
Launching in the Bronx, Mobile Community Shower & Wellness Services fulfills a dream of community redemption
Mobile Community Shower & Wellness Services Backstory
When Sam Cabassa returned home to the Bronx in 2017 after spending 34 years in prison, he was determined to make amends to his community. “I took a bad turn in life,” he says. “I can’t change the past. But I can definitely make a positive impact on people’s lives now.”
Today Sam is the executive director of Mobile Community Shower & Wellness Services, whose mission is to improve the health and quality of life of people experiencing homelessness in New York City.
MCSWS emerged from an encounter Sam had at his first counseling job, in 2018, with someone who hadn’t showered for a month. He felt the person’s overpowering odor interfered with his ability to help, and he realized how critical it was for people to be able to shower.
Sam’s next position, at Bellevue Hospital, put him in contact with a larger number of people experiencing homelessness. “I thought about showers every day at that job,” he recalls. Over the holiday season in 2019 he mentioned his interest in shower access to his older brother, Ralph. “Two days later he called me to say that he’d seen a mobile shower drive by but that he had missed its name.” A brief internet search brought Sam to LavaMaeˣ.
“They invented the wheel,” Sam says, and in January 2020, he started working with Amber Wise, LavaMaeˣ director of programs and impact, as part of the global nonprofit’s intensive one-on-one mentoring program. “Amber has been a godsend,” Sam says. “She took my hand and never let it go.”
The pair worked together for more than two years to launch Sam’s dream of bringing mobile showers to unhoused people in the Bronx. On August 15, 2022, MCSWS formally launched at a temporary location, with a range of services including wellness and harm reduction.
Overcoming obstacles and setbacks
When Amber and Sam began working together, they identified obtaining 501(c)(3) nonprofit status as the first step. Working quickly and independently, Sam filed for it, but COVID-19 lockdowns delayed the certification until May 2021. That setback threw another wrench in the works: Sam lost out on grant funding that would have allowed him to buy a four-stall shower trailer.
With each obstacle Sam faced, he focused on what he could control and stayed in touch with Amber, filling her in on the ups and downs. Says Amber, “He never went away when things got hard, and he told me everything.” With this steady contact, Amber felt she could truly support Sam; Sam in turn saw Amber as “a rock,” saying, “There were so many hardships, and she always found some way to encourage me.”
Amber’s support covered the gamut of tasks required to get a mobile shower up and running, including trailer specifications, assistance with a city council business proposal, storytelling and public relations, budgeting and staffing. LavaMaeˣ also connected Sam with Manhattan-based Shower Power for a day of onsite shower service training.
Sam especially benefited from LavaMaeˣ’s detailed list of equipment and supplies, which helped him understand why he needed certain items, learn more affordable alternatives and budget realistically.
Digging deep to open the doors
After his initial funding fell through, Sam spent $13,000 of his own savings on a down payment for a shower trailer with two stalls. Although not weatherized for New York winters, the trailer would allow Sam to bring showers and other services to the streets for eight months out of the year.
The following year, in October of 2021, he received funding from LavaMaeˣ for two handwashing stations as well as a $10,000 grant to pay off the trailer. By then, though, winter had set in, delaying the program’s launch.
After another setback—$13,700 in sunk costs for a truck that turned out to be a lemon and then got stolen—Sam launched on August 15 at East 149th Street next to AutoZone. “Sam was so happy,” Amber remembers. “I’d never seen a happier person.”
To solve the truck dilemma, he again dipped into his own pockets to rent a U-Haul truck. He still pays to rent one. (After consulting with Amber on the ins and outs of grant writing, Sam decided active fundraising wasn’t in his wheelhouse and chose to invest his own money in bringing MCSWS to life.) Though he served only one guest that day, the program, open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. three times a week, steadily grew to a regular community of 15 to 16 people before shuttering on November 9 for the winter.
That Thanksgiving, Sam returned to the corner with a holiday feast that served 125 people. His niece, Raelynn Nicolai, who owns a frozen yogurt shop and donates fresh juices to the program, prepared the food and helped serve. “We fed some of our regular guests and those members of our community who might have been lacking the finances to prepare food or friends and family to bless them with a meal,” Sam recalls. “We fed the old and young, small families, individuals in wheelchairs and anyone who desired to participate.”
Footage from MCSWS’ Thanksgiving holiday feast, 2022.
Impact stories from the Bronx
In addition to providing consistent showers and a sense of community, MCSWS offers guests haircuts, clothing, laundry, meals, addiction counseling, harm reduction, case management and linkage to other services. The nonprofit also is a registered Opioid Overdose Prevention Program through the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It distributes naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, as a harm reduction tool, and Sam is trained to reverse overdoses with it. One guest that MCSWS supplied with Narcan, Sam says, had reversed 11 overdoses as of December 2022. Trained to share his own story of recovery through his work as a wellness advocate, Sam readily connects with his shower guests. One regular at the AutoZone corner, a 39-year-old curbside auto mechanic who struggled with a substance abuse disorder, always arrived on-site covered in grease and grime from his job and left his shower renewed. “Every time I am in the shower, I don’t want to come out, because the hot water feels so good and it’s so clean in there,” the guest told Sam.
Another guest at the Bronx site gave back to the program. Now housed in a studio apartment with his fiancé, when he first stopped by the shower site with a shopping cart full of cans, he was unhoused. He told Sam, “Love what you’re doing here.” After several exchanges with Sam, he became a guest and started sweeping the sidewalk and helping with shower setup and breakdown. He even insisted on cleaning a nearby corner hidden under scaffolding that was used as a toilet and injection site. To keep that space clean, he converted a 2-gallon jug into a safe disposal bin for used needles.
Sam plans to resume MCSWS services in April when the warm weather returns. Meanwhile, he stays in touch with Amber as he scouts his next location and considers expanding to other boroughs. Reflecting on Sam’s achievements, Amber says, “Sam truly gives of himself and I’m in awe of how loved he is by his community, his friends and his family.” Sam is continuing to work on his own recovery from drugs and violence, saying, “I work on that every day. It makes me feel good.”
MCSWS profile
Home base: Bronx (New York, N.Y.)
Team: Sam and his brother Ralph Monserrat along with seven other volunteers
Mobile unit: 1 trailer with two shower units, each with a mirror, sink and toilet
Services: Showers three times a week along with services such as clothing, meals and harm reduction. Registered as an Opioid Overdose Prevention Program.
Guests served: About 16 regular guests at the initial site in the Bronx on East 149th Street, culminating in a Thanksgiving feast with 125 community members in 2022.
Radical Hospitality tips and lessons
Build rapport with your guests
Build up your community
Show up consistently