10 ms·

Engineer Converts Used Van into Mobile Laundromat, Offers Free Loads to Homeless

113 points by IamZeroBalance 6y ago

TheCapeGreek 6y ago
(2017) Seems like a good project anyway. This idea should be spread around.
- jamesgreenleaf 6y ago
  It's hard to tell, but it seems like it has spread. A search shows that there are a number of charities/ministries with the same name offering similar services nationwide.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kwhitefoot 6y ago
Good for him. It must be a great boon to homeless people to have clean clothes; I know that I would feel very dispirited if I could not wear clean clothes on top of the already horrible situation of being homeless. But how come there are so many homeless people in the richest country in the world?
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  Because Americans don't have a culture of taking care of each other. They rely on the government to do it, government doesn't always want to, and the citizens don't demand that government does it. Source: am American & formerly homeless
  - yorwba 6y ago
    Of course the article is about someone who does take care of others instead of waiting for the government to do it. Hopefully there will be more people like that in the future.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      This wasn't pure charity. This is religious outreach, proselytization. >> Powers saw a way to address a need in his community and share his faith in the process. A devout Christian, he wanted to shift from discussing the teachings of the church to living them out by helping others.
      - marshmallow_12 6y ago
        so you think he should stop? (answer: no)
        sandworm101 6y ago
        I would have to know more about the situation. Providing a laundry service is good, but is a mobile service better than putting those resources into a fixed site? And, because this is private charity, how much of a tax deduction is this guy taking? Is he deducting the cost of the vehicle? If he is taking deductions then this activity is being effectively subsidized by taxpayers. That money might be better spent more efficiently on other services.
        skeeter2020 6y ago
        It's doubtful that this one guy is a registered charity. As a private individual you can't just claim your expenses and actions as a deduction. It's also kind of sad that your first thought when you see someone who decided to do something in his own way help your big concern is he's "inefficiently using tax deductions for his personal project". Maybe you should examine your own contributions?
        sandworm101 6y ago
        >> "Powers started the program, which he dubbed Loads of Love, last year after seeing a YouTube video about Orange Sky Laundry." The California "Loads of Love" charity which this person seems to have founded http://www.loadsoflovesb.org/ http://www.loadsoflovesb.org/ How to make donations: https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/MakeDonation.aspx https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/MakeDonation.aspx Their FAQ re Tax: https://networkforgood.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007369988-How-do-I-get-a-tax-receipt-for-past-donations- https://networkforgood.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1150073... "Network for Good issues tax receipts at the time of donations." So ya, this is does seem to be a registered charity and donations are tax deductible.
  - bayindirh 6y ago
    I wonder how American culture evolved for self reliance over time, or what are the underlying causes for it. This is a question without any prejudice. I'm from another part of pale blue dot where the situation is exact opposite.
    - dakna 6y ago
      > what are the underlying causes I don't want to reduce this complex issues to just one cause, but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic might help to understand at least parts of what we are seeing.
      - skeeter2020 6y ago
        that's definitely part of what made America today through the initial settlement from Western Europe. A big challenge is that population growth is not coming from the same areas anymore, so expecting the same driving values is probabvly not going to work. True or not, the USA is still a beacon for opportunity and an escape from some pretty dire places. The lack of social safety systems is a polarizing but effective marketing tool for the people it attracts.
    - raisedbyninjas 6y ago
      Only a few centuries ago many Americans lived on the frontier. Frontier life has been venerated by many since then. This gives rise to the popularity self-reliance, guns, rural and suburb living, small government and privatization, deregulation, car ownership over public transportation, etc.
      - skeeter2020 6y ago
        Part of the American psyche is an emphasis on the individual over the state, and smaller tribes over larger communal groups. This creates the narrative of self-reliance and making it on your own, regardless if it is true or not.
  - etsimm 6y ago
    If root cause we're cultural you'd suspect another rich country like France would have better numbers, but they don't: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-homeless-people-per-100000-population-circa-2013 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-homeless-people...
  - chris_wot 6y ago
    It seems to me that people the works over think it is the homeless’s own fault they are homeless. That’s the problem.
  - TimedToasts 6y ago
    Americans will take care of their family and their community. This generally does not extend to a random homeless person.
    - mschuster91 6y ago
      > Americans will take care of their family and their community. Given the numbers of homeless, obviously many do not. Not even for vets who risked their lives and gave their physical and mental health for their country.
    - iancmceachern 6y ago
      Isn't a random homeless person part of their community?
      - TimedToasts 6y ago
        No. Unless you redefine community to mean 'anyone within a particular geographic area' which renders the concept meaningless.
        iancmceachern 6y ago
        I get that they are not necessarily a part of their community, but the responses to my comment have been that he is necessarily not a part of that person's community just because one is homeless. What about the area in between? Like couldn't a person befriend a "random homeless person", and then that person becomes very much a part of their community?
      - skeeter2020 6y ago
        they're part of the homeless community, but that doesn't help much. Homeless people do try to look out for each other, but lack of resources and personal demons make that hard. Community is far more than physical proximty; it's often the opposite where living near each other is a symptom of the underlying values, beliefs and shared traits. There are lots of communities in the same physical area.
    - 6y ago
  - foxyv 6y ago
    Japan seems to do pretty well. There seems to be a culture there that the person above is talking about. But far more important is they allow the kind of hostels and low cost housing that has been regulated out of existence in a lot of modern countries and cities. For instance, cyber cafes and capsule hotels which are as cheap as $10 a night are extremely popular with the poorest Japanese. However if I were expecting to be homeless soon I would wish to be in Finland. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...
  - skeeter2020 6y ago
    this is a relatively new phenomenon; in the past we had a lot more benevolent and faith based organizations that we've displaced with government services. Far less people a active members of churches and nobody joins the elks, shriners, knights of columbus, etc. anymore that I know. We're also far more transient and have moved to big cities in huge numbers. None of these things encourage the community and connectivity that caring for each other demands.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    > Americans don't have a culture of taking care of each other. They rely on the government to do it, Surely it is the other way about. Americans give to charity much more than Europeans as far as I can tell and volunteering and doing things like this engineer's mobile laundry seem much more common in the US. On the other hand governments in Europe (at least northern Europe which is the part i know most about) seem to put rather more effort into housing the homeless and making the lot of those without a job more bearable.
- ramphastidae 6y ago
  For the same reason there is little to no universal health care, welfare, retirement, workers rights, or higher education system — the US values short-term profit over basic humanity.
  - refurb 6y ago
    There is no universal retirement? Social security doesn’t count? No welfare? That’s not true. Or if it’s true then Canada doesn’t have those either.
  - mdip 6y ago
    > For the same reason there is little to no universal health care, welfare, retirement, workers rights, or higher education system — the US values short-term profit over basic humanity. It's interesting how easy it is to take someone's political opinion and derive the worst possible motivation out of it. Each one of these statements requires someone to provide the service. I do not require anything out of anyone else in order to exercise the variety of rights protected by the Bill of Rights. Should "access to Healthcare" become a right, it has to be provided by someone for free or paid for by someone else. There are people who are willing to work for free, or for less than what the skill-level should arguably require, but there are many more people who won't. For many, going to school for 7 years to become a surgeon is motivated by the lifestyle/paycheck that being a good surgeon can offer. For many, having to pay for healthcare keeps them from using the services unnecessarily, and not getting care. In countries where universal healthcare exists, some people who need care wait in line for it. Neither are good outcomes. But summarizing an opposing political viewpoint with "Those guys are just dumb/evil" rather than trying to understand the complexity of all of the issues involved (even if the outcome is "good for you" but "bad for someone else" and being willing to weigh those two outcomes as equal with participants who have an equal right to their life/liberty/property) is one of the reasons we are where we are in America.
    - kwhitefoot 6y ago
      > I do not require anything out of anyone else in order to exercise the variety of rights protected by the Bill of Rights. Being able to read and write helps and that seems to be best provided by universal primary education, which does seem to be provided as a right in the US (even though it is not guaranteed by the constitution). Being healthy also helps and that seems to be best provided by universal free at point of use healthcare, which is not provided as a right in the US. Why should you get one 'free' and the other not? After all the education also has to be paid for by someone else.
- mcculley 6y ago
  In terms of GDP per capita, the U.S. is not the richest country in the world. If one deducts the fraction of GDP spent on propping up terrible regimes, it has even less to spend on citizens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- mdip 6y ago
  > But how come there are so many homeless people in the richest country in the world? I think the replies to this thread and others offer a pretty interesting answer. I'm guessing, though can't confirm, that many of the replies are from people who live in America or a similar rich western country. However, the responses are all written as though the reply was written by someone observing the problem from the outside, "Americans don't... Americans value x over y". Unfortunately, it feels a lot like "it's someone else's problem to solve" ... unless the solution is complaining about others not solving the problem. Or that supporting "public policy", higher taxes and things "The Government Should Be Doing" is enough (or even a good idea)[0]. But it's so hard to do something ... it's not. Find a good church. Don't like religion? Find a good service organization. The church I attend, every single Sunday, directly pushes us to "go out into the community". This place does it differently, in some ways, than others. Rather than a top-down "here's the organizations we support" with leadership running them, they encourage members to "go out and do" and if what you're doing is working, they -- for lack of a better word, provide the marketing[1]. They'll provide financial support, too, but it's rarely needed. Out of that, we have hundreds of small service groups, many of which were founded a few hours after a Sunday service by a "someone who showed up that day". There was a woman at my church who decided to load up on supplies and hop in her minivan driving around the worst parts of Detroit to hand underwear, toothbrushes, and food to drug-addicted sex workers a few years ago. I don't know the latest count, but they were running 8 vans of them within a few months and several volunteers came from the streets the vans were visiting. We have several volunteer run groups that operate like Habitat for Humanity, and we have a rotating shelter staffed with volunteers. There's plenty of ways to reach out to a fellow human being who's life you could be a part of and plenty of fellow human beings who need volunteers to help. They're doing something right, for sure. Best I can tell is that they encourage us to "take ownership of the problem" and "lead by doing" -- so these groups are all run by people who "go to church on Sunday" rather than "Professional Christians(tm)". They don't worry as much about people going out and "doing something that'll make the church look bad". AFAIK, it's not happened in the 20 years I've been there despite the approach[2], and many of our volunteers don't look like your typical "Sunday Best Church Folks". My apologies if this sounds like I'm scolding -- I'm am, but I'm no better than those complaining about "Americans Not Doing Anything(tm)" -- it's been a year since I've done any volunteer work and as I've gotten older, the amount of volunteering I've done has been less and less. In my 20s, I was much more involved, and as is typical -- kids/job -- I've made a series of excuses that have kept me from being more involved. I'm tired. I worked hard. I don't have the energy to volunteer. It's stupid thinking, really. I've never left a volunteer activity feeling anything other than awesome and filled with energy. [0] If the extent of your support for the homeless begins and ends here, it's worth doing a bit of research to determine if your support is counterproductive, or -- worst case -- if the program in question exists to employ a bureaucrat rather than solve a problem. [1] That sounds really wrong the way it's stated, but my church is a multi-campus large organization. The hard part of any volunteer activity is volunteers. Though external funding is sometimes needed, money is very rarely the problem -- getting people's time is. A huge number of people want to volunteer but want to help doing something that they're comfortable doing. When a church has as many service groups as ours does, there's something that fits -- the tricky part is getting that information out widely enough that you connect the volunteer with the job (and make it one-click to sign-up). [2] There's no organizations dedicated to anything political/picketing/culture wars -- they don't operate that way. It makes them a little unpopular with the "Big Churches" but if the established folks (most of whom lead dead congregations) are upset and can't articulate the reasons, that's a pretty good indicator that we're doing something right.
someperson 6y ago
It's sad that one of the most richest places on Earth (the San Francisco Bay Area) is unable to house, feed, clothe and provide drug/alcohol/mental health treatment to a mere 10,000 homeless people. I know homelessness is more than "houselessness", but it seems like a pretty simple problem to solve. Even considering that other states bus their homeless to Calfornia, fixing the 600,000 who sleep outside (and the 1.5 million who visit homeless shelters each year) doesn't seem particularly difficult. Though obviously mobile laundromats are a complete waste of finite resources and absolutely not the way to solve homelessness.
- whb07 6y ago
  I volunteer you for the challenge.
- pwgentleman 6y ago
  Most problems seem pretty simple until one actively tries to solve them. One thing that _is_ actually simple is simply criticizing. I would argue that a lot more good has been done by individuals that decided to "do something about it" that big government initiatives.
  - sonotathrowaway 6y ago
    Homelessness and home insecurity is especially pernicious, as it ties into many other issues - income inequality, zoning and city policy, mental health. That’s why it’s much easier to sit behind a keyboard and make snide remarks about people who actually act.
  - wintermutestwin 6y ago
    I wonder if individuals stepping up decreases or increases the chance that government will solve problems that are clearly systemic in nature (and thus the responsibility of government to resolve). Is charity making it easier for governments to shirk their responsibilities?
    - mdip 6y ago
willcipriano 6y ago
I'd be quite interested how he meets the power requirements, is he using electric dryers? I feel like a vans alternator has no hope of running 1 let alone 2 of them. Also what does the freshwater/wastewater system looks like?
- bayindirh 6y ago
  Looks like he has an onboard generator, two tanks for fresh and discarded water. The video also talks about external connections for power and water if it's available.
- RegBarclay 6y ago
  I was interested in that aspect of the story when I clicked into it, but I'm not really disappointed that it wasn't covered. Turns out it wasn't really the point anyway. That said, he could easily have a generator rigged up to supply power. A lot of RVs have on-board washers and dryers, so the technology is widely available. If I were going to do something like this, I'd try to find dryers that heated with propane both for efficiency and to limit the electrical draw on the generator.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- Wouter33 6y ago
  Here is a video explaining his setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8rgFAOXgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8rgFAOXgY
- MrMcDowall 6y ago
  In the video below, he mentions they are gas powered driers.
  - willcipriano 6y ago
    Ahh my ad blocker got rid of the video. Thank you.
bellyfullofbac 6y ago
I remember seeing this years ago, and as this article's date says "2017" that's probably when I saw it. I wonder what's happened in the 4 years between then and now, a quick Twitter search doesn't generate any hits, is he still around, if not, why not?
- nsb1 6y ago
  Still around - Last FB post was March 14 looks like... https://www.lolo-sc.com/ https://www.lolo-sc.com/

TheCapeGreek 6y ago

(2017) Seems like a good project anyway. This idea should be spread around.

jamesgreenleaf 6y ago
It's hard to tell, but it seems like it has spread. A search shows that there are a number of charities/ministries with the same name offering similar services nationwide.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kwhitefoot 6y ago

Good for him. It must be a great boon to homeless people to have clean clothes; I know that I would feel very dispirited if I could not wear clean clothes on top of the already horrible situation of being homeless. But how come there are so many homeless people in the richest country in the world?

devoutsalsa 6y ago
Because Americans don't have a culture of taking care of each other. They rely on the government to do it, government doesn't always want to, and the citizens don't demand that government does it. Source: am American & formerly homeless
- yorwba 6y ago
  Of course the article is about someone who does take care of others instead of waiting for the government to do it. Hopefully there will be more people like that in the future.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    This wasn't pure charity. This is religious outreach, proselytization. >> Powers saw a way to address a need in his community and share his faith in the process. A devout Christian, he wanted to shift from discussing the teachings of the church to living them out by helping others.
    - marshmallow_12 6y ago
      so you think he should stop? (answer: no)
      - sandworm101 6y ago
        I would have to know more about the situation. Providing a laundry service is good, but is a mobile service better than putting those resources into a fixed site? And, because this is private charity, how much of a tax deduction is this guy taking? Is he deducting the cost of the vehicle? If he is taking deductions then this activity is being effectively subsidized by taxpayers. That money might be better spent more efficiently on other services.
        skeeter2020 6y ago
        It's doubtful that this one guy is a registered charity. As a private individual you can't just claim your expenses and actions as a deduction. It's also kind of sad that your first thought when you see someone who decided to do something in his own way help your big concern is he's "inefficiently using tax deductions for his personal project". Maybe you should examine your own contributions?
        sandworm101 6y ago
        >> "Powers started the program, which he dubbed Loads of Love, last year after seeing a YouTube video about Orange Sky Laundry." The California "Loads of Love" charity which this person seems to have founded http://www.loadsoflovesb.org/ http://www.loadsoflovesb.org/ How to make donations: https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/MakeDonation.aspx https://www.networkforgood.org/donation/MakeDonation.aspx Their FAQ re Tax: https://networkforgood.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007369988-How-do-I-get-a-tax-receipt-for-past-donations- https://networkforgood.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1150073... "Network for Good issues tax receipts at the time of donations." So ya, this is does seem to be a registered charity and donations are tax deductible.
- bayindirh 6y ago
  I wonder how American culture evolved for self reliance over time, or what are the underlying causes for it. This is a question without any prejudice. I'm from another part of pale blue dot where the situation is exact opposite.
  - dakna 6y ago
    > what are the underlying causes I don't want to reduce this complex issues to just one cause, but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic might help to understand at least parts of what we are seeing.
    - skeeter2020 6y ago
      that's definitely part of what made America today through the initial settlement from Western Europe. A big challenge is that population growth is not coming from the same areas anymore, so expecting the same driving values is probabvly not going to work. True or not, the USA is still a beacon for opportunity and an escape from some pretty dire places. The lack of social safety systems is a polarizing but effective marketing tool for the people it attracts.
  - raisedbyninjas 6y ago
    Only a few centuries ago many Americans lived on the frontier. Frontier life has been venerated by many since then. This gives rise to the popularity self-reliance, guns, rural and suburb living, small government and privatization, deregulation, car ownership over public transportation, etc.
    - skeeter2020 6y ago
      Part of the American psyche is an emphasis on the individual over the state, and smaller tribes over larger communal groups. This creates the narrative of self-reliance and making it on your own, regardless if it is true or not.
- etsimm 6y ago
  If root cause we're cultural you'd suspect another rich country like France would have better numbers, but they don't: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-homeless-people-per-100000-population-circa-2013 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-homeless-people...
- chris_wot 6y ago
  It seems to me that people the works over think it is the homeless’s own fault they are homeless. That’s the problem.
- TimedToasts 6y ago
  Americans will take care of their family and their community. This generally does not extend to a random homeless person.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > Americans will take care of their family and their community. Given the numbers of homeless, obviously many do not. Not even for vets who risked their lives and gave their physical and mental health for their country.
  - iancmceachern 6y ago
    Isn't a random homeless person part of their community?
    - TimedToasts 6y ago
      No. Unless you redefine community to mean 'anyone within a particular geographic area' which renders the concept meaningless.
      - iancmceachern 6y ago
        I get that they are not necessarily a part of their community, but the responses to my comment have been that he is necessarily not a part of that person's community just because one is homeless. What about the area in between? Like couldn't a person befriend a "random homeless person", and then that person becomes very much a part of their community?
    - skeeter2020 6y ago
      they're part of the homeless community, but that doesn't help much. Homeless people do try to look out for each other, but lack of resources and personal demons make that hard. Community is far more than physical proximty; it's often the opposite where living near each other is a symptom of the underlying values, beliefs and shared traits. There are lots of communities in the same physical area.
  - 6y ago
- foxyv 6y ago
  Japan seems to do pretty well. There seems to be a culture there that the person above is talking about. But far more important is they allow the kind of hostels and low cost housing that has been regulated out of existence in a lot of modern countries and cities. For instance, cyber cafes and capsule hotels which are as cheap as $10 a night are extremely popular with the poorest Japanese. However if I were expecting to be homeless soon I would wish to be in Finland. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle-helsinkis-radical-solution-to-homelessness https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/03/its-a-miracle...
- skeeter2020 6y ago
  this is a relatively new phenomenon; in the past we had a lot more benevolent and faith based organizations that we've displaced with government services. Far less people a active members of churches and nobody joins the elks, shriners, knights of columbus, etc. anymore that I know. We're also far more transient and have moved to big cities in huge numbers. None of these things encourage the community and connectivity that caring for each other demands.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  > Americans don't have a culture of taking care of each other. They rely on the government to do it, Surely it is the other way about. Americans give to charity much more than Europeans as far as I can tell and volunteering and doing things like this engineer's mobile laundry seem much more common in the US. On the other hand governments in Europe (at least northern Europe which is the part i know most about) seem to put rather more effort into housing the homeless and making the lot of those without a job more bearable.
ramphastidae 6y ago
For the same reason there is little to no universal health care, welfare, retirement, workers rights, or higher education system — the US values short-term profit over basic humanity.
- refurb 6y ago
  There is no universal retirement? Social security doesn’t count? No welfare? That’s not true. Or if it’s true then Canada doesn’t have those either.
- mdip 6y ago
  > For the same reason there is little to no universal health care, welfare, retirement, workers rights, or higher education system — the US values short-term profit over basic humanity. It's interesting how easy it is to take someone's political opinion and derive the worst possible motivation out of it. Each one of these statements requires someone to provide the service. I do not require anything out of anyone else in order to exercise the variety of rights protected by the Bill of Rights. Should "access to Healthcare" become a right, it has to be provided by someone for free or paid for by someone else. There are people who are willing to work for free, or for less than what the skill-level should arguably require, but there are many more people who won't. For many, going to school for 7 years to become a surgeon is motivated by the lifestyle/paycheck that being a good surgeon can offer. For many, having to pay for healthcare keeps them from using the services unnecessarily, and not getting care. In countries where universal healthcare exists, some people who need care wait in line for it. Neither are good outcomes. But summarizing an opposing political viewpoint with "Those guys are just dumb/evil" rather than trying to understand the complexity of all of the issues involved (even if the outcome is "good for you" but "bad for someone else" and being willing to weigh those two outcomes as equal with participants who have an equal right to their life/liberty/property) is one of the reasons we are where we are in America.
  - kwhitefoot 6y ago
    > I do not require anything out of anyone else in order to exercise the variety of rights protected by the Bill of Rights. Being able to read and write helps and that seems to be best provided by universal primary education, which does seem to be provided as a right in the US (even though it is not guaranteed by the constitution). Being healthy also helps and that seems to be best provided by universal free at point of use healthcare, which is not provided as a right in the US. Why should you get one 'free' and the other not? After all the education also has to be paid for by someone else.
mcculley 6y ago
In terms of GDP per capita, the U.S. is not the richest country in the world. If one deducts the fraction of GDP spent on propping up terrible regimes, it has even less to spend on citizens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
mdip 6y ago
> But how come there are so many homeless people in the richest country in the world? I think the replies to this thread and others offer a pretty interesting answer. I'm guessing, though can't confirm, that many of the replies are from people who live in America or a similar rich western country. However, the responses are all written as though the reply was written by someone observing the problem from the outside, "Americans don't... Americans value x over y". Unfortunately, it feels a lot like "it's someone else's problem to solve" ... unless the solution is complaining about others not solving the problem. Or that supporting "public policy", higher taxes and things "The Government Should Be Doing" is enough (or even a good idea)[0]. But it's so hard to do something ... it's not. Find a good church. Don't like religion? Find a good service organization. The church I attend, every single Sunday, directly pushes us to "go out into the community". This place does it differently, in some ways, than others. Rather than a top-down "here's the organizations we support" with leadership running them, they encourage members to "go out and do" and if what you're doing is working, they -- for lack of a better word, provide the marketing[1]. They'll provide financial support, too, but it's rarely needed. Out of that, we have hundreds of small service groups, many of which were founded a few hours after a Sunday service by a "someone who showed up that day". There was a woman at my church who decided to load up on supplies and hop in her minivan driving around the worst parts of Detroit to hand underwear, toothbrushes, and food to drug-addicted sex workers a few years ago. I don't know the latest count, but they were running 8 vans of them within a few months and several volunteers came from the streets the vans were visiting. We have several volunteer run groups that operate like Habitat for Humanity, and we have a rotating shelter staffed with volunteers. There's plenty of ways to reach out to a fellow human being who's life you could be a part of and plenty of fellow human beings who need volunteers to help. They're doing something right, for sure. Best I can tell is that they encourage us to "take ownership of the problem" and "lead by doing" -- so these groups are all run by people who "go to church on Sunday" rather than "Professional Christians(tm)". They don't worry as much about people going out and "doing something that'll make the church look bad". AFAIK, it's not happened in the 20 years I've been there despite the approach[2], and many of our volunteers don't look like your typical "Sunday Best Church Folks". My apologies if this sounds like I'm scolding -- I'm am, but I'm no better than those complaining about "Americans Not Doing Anything(tm)" -- it's been a year since I've done any volunteer work and as I've gotten older, the amount of volunteering I've done has been less and less. In my 20s, I was much more involved, and as is typical -- kids/job -- I've made a series of excuses that have kept me from being more involved. I'm tired. I worked hard. I don't have the energy to volunteer. It's stupid thinking, really. I've never left a volunteer activity feeling anything other than awesome and filled with energy. [0] If the extent of your support for the homeless begins and ends here, it's worth doing a bit of research to determine if your support is counterproductive, or -- worst case -- if the program in question exists to employ a bureaucrat rather than solve a problem. [1] That sounds really wrong the way it's stated, but my church is a multi-campus large organization. The hard part of any volunteer activity is volunteers. Though external funding is sometimes needed, money is very rarely the problem -- getting people's time is. A huge number of people want to volunteer but want to help doing something that they're comfortable doing. When a church has as many service groups as ours does, there's something that fits -- the tricky part is getting that information out widely enough that you connect the volunteer with the job (and make it one-click to sign-up). [2] There's no organizations dedicated to anything political/picketing/culture wars -- they don't operate that way. It makes them a little unpopular with the "Big Churches" but if the established folks (most of whom lead dead congregations) are upset and can't articulate the reasons, that's a pretty good indicator that we're doing something right.

someperson 6y ago

It's sad that one of the most richest places on Earth (the San Francisco Bay Area) is unable to house, feed, clothe and provide drug/alcohol/mental health treatment to a mere 10,000 homeless people. I know homelessness is more than "houselessness", but it seems like a pretty simple problem to solve. Even considering that other states bus their homeless to Calfornia, fixing the 600,000 who sleep outside (and the 1.5 million who visit homeless shelters each year) doesn't seem particularly difficult. Though obviously mobile laundromats are a complete waste of finite resources and absolutely not the way to solve homelessness.

whb07 6y ago
I volunteer you for the challenge.
pwgentleman 6y ago
Most problems seem pretty simple until one actively tries to solve them. One thing that _is_ actually simple is simply criticizing. I would argue that a lot more good has been done by individuals that decided to "do something about it" that big government initiatives.
- sonotathrowaway 6y ago
  Homelessness and home insecurity is especially pernicious, as it ties into many other issues - income inequality, zoning and city policy, mental health. That’s why it’s much easier to sit behind a keyboard and make snide remarks about people who actually act.
- wintermutestwin 6y ago
  I wonder if individuals stepping up decreases or increases the chance that government will solve problems that are clearly systemic in nature (and thus the responsibility of government to resolve). Is charity making it easier for governments to shirk their responsibilities?
  - mdip 6y ago

willcipriano 6y ago

I'd be quite interested how he meets the power requirements, is he using electric dryers? I feel like a vans alternator has no hope of running 1 let alone 2 of them. Also what does the freshwater/wastewater system looks like?

bayindirh 6y ago
Looks like he has an onboard generator, two tanks for fresh and discarded water. The video also talks about external connections for power and water if it's available.
RegBarclay 6y ago
I was interested in that aspect of the story when I clicked into it, but I'm not really disappointed that it wasn't covered. Turns out it wasn't really the point anyway. That said, he could easily have a generator rigged up to supply power. A lot of RVs have on-board washers and dryers, so the technology is widely available. If I were going to do something like this, I'd try to find dryers that heated with propane both for efficiency and to limit the electrical draw on the generator.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Wouter33 6y ago
Here is a video explaining his setup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8rgFAOXgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8rgFAOXgY
MrMcDowall 6y ago
In the video below, he mentions they are gas powered driers.
- willcipriano 6y ago
  Ahh my ad blocker got rid of the video. Thank you.

bellyfullofbac 6y ago

I remember seeing this years ago, and as this article's date says "2017" that's probably when I saw it. I wonder what's happened in the 4 years between then and now, a quick Twitter search doesn't generate any hits, is he still around, if not, why not?

nsb1 6y ago
Still around - Last FB post was March 14 looks like... https://www.lolo-sc.com/ https://www.lolo-sc.com/