This shower on wheels is helping London's homeless

Showering is something a *lot* of us take for granted. That feeling of being squeaky clean, suds foaming around your smellier parts, questionable singing gurgling through the water flow. 

For London’s homeless population however, showering is often more of a luxury. According to the latest annual report from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), 11,018 individuals were seen sleeping rough in the capital between April 2020 and March 2021. A lot of these people will have gone weeks or months without access to safe and private washing facilities – and although some existing homeless centres around London provide showers, many just can’t meet the current demand. 

Now, an innovative London-based start-up is on the road to try and change things by providing free, pop-up shower facilities in the city centre. 

Buying an old trailer on Gumtree and fitting it out with two showers and changing rooms, Sarah Lamptey founded ShowerBox in 2018 after realising the urgent need for hygiene facilities in the capital.

'I think people feel the showers have been quite transformative,' Lamptey said to Time Out, talking about the project. As well as the physical benefits of being clean and stopping the spread of disease, the showers help rough sleepers to maintain a level of personal hygiene that can improve mental health and job prospects and decrease the likelihood of negative stigma from the public.

ShowerBox currently operates as a pop-up at St Giles church near Tottenham Court Road tube station. Run by a team of 15 volunteers, it's open every Saturday, 9am to 5pm, and also provides other essentials such as haircuts, toiletries, hot drinks, underwear, and period products (with Tricky Period).

Despite the introduction of the government's Everyone In campaign to get rough sleepers off the streets and into hotels at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Lamptey said that their services were still ‘very busy’ throughout lockdowns, operating on both Wednesdays and Saturdays. ‘ShowerBox was recognised as an element of frontline care and we were officially allowed to operate, which was great,' Lamptey said. 

Fast forward to October 2021 and the demand for ShowerBox services is now 'bigger than ever'. Lamptey recently launched a fundraising campaign on Just Giving to replace the initial trailer with a new, four bay box, so the project can provide more showers than its current average of 35 per day. ‘We need the service to be a lot more efficient because we just are so busy,’ she explained.

The organisation is also working with homeless charities and a team of volunteers to launch another free shower trailer in Birmingham, later this year. 

ShowerBox sessions are on Saturdays, 10:00 – 15:00, at St Giles in the Fields, WC2H 8LG. Find out more about ShowerBox here and contribute to their fundraising campaign here.  

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