In 2017, Shawn Seipler saw a video out of San Francisco that affected him—and the organization he had founded eight years earlier—deeply.

“A group took a city bus and converted it into a mobile shower unit,” Seipler says. “They were hooking it up to fire hydrants and giving showers to the homeless. I said, ‘That is Clean the World. That is exactly what we should be doing.’ ”

Since 2009, the global health organization had been redistributing soap from hotels and resorts to people in countries with high hygiene-related death rates. And here in the Las Vegas Valley, where Clean the World had expanded from its original city of Orlando, Florida, the nonprofit began teaming with Las Vegas Sands in 2014 to distribute hygiene kits to locals in need.

But in 2017, a Homeless Census & Survey conducted by HelpHopeHome.orgranked Southern Nevada’s homeless population among the nation’s 10 largest, putting the number at almost 25,000 individuals. And Seipler wanted Clean the World to do more.

“We’ve been in Las Vegas since 2010 … so it’s very important for us to give back,” Seipler says. “Our heart has been in Las Vegas.”

In 2017, Sands sponsored Clean the World’s first local mobile shower trailer, funding the creation of the CTW’s Fresh Start WASH and Wellness Program and covering its operational costs. Four years later, that program has expanded to include four mobile showers, behind partnerships with Clark County andCaesars Entertainment/Caesars Foundation, which began in 2020 and October 2021, respectively.

To date, Clean the World has delivered more than 30,000 showers to Las Vegas’ homeless population.

“There’s magic that happens in the shower,” Seipler says. “[People] look different. They have a shine. It’s a figurative shine, but their hair is cleaner, their nails are cleaner. They get toothbrushes and toothpaste. They’re talking like somebody who just got to brush their teeth and has a very clean mouth.”

More than 12,000 people in Southern Nevada will have experienced homelessness at some point in 2021, according to a Homeless Point-In-Time Count and Survey conducted in January. Approximately 55% of the current population lives in unsheltered areas, the majority surviving on the streets, in cars or encampments.

Those issues have continued growing during the pandemic. An August study by UNLV’s Brookings Mountain West found that job loss has “exacerbated housing insecurity among low-income renters over the past year.” Rising rental costs haven’t helped, either. Homelessness, Brookings reports, is more prevalent in metro areas with “higher median rent, higher shares of rental housing and higher percentages of single-person homes.”

In 2018, Seipler and his team received data from the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a government information-collecting system. The results confirmed Clean the World’s dedication to its mission.

Days when CTW’s showers were present at an organization’s location it saw a 54% increase in service referrals, and communities with mobile showers available saw a 15% homeless rate reduction within the first six months, Seipler says. “I remember internally going, ‘Wow, I think we’ve got a tiger by the tail here.’ ”

With COVID cases on the rise again, access to clean water, soap and hygiene facilities matters more than ever. Homeless Southern Nevadans might attempt to wash up inside public restrooms; those at shelters can find lengthy waits to use bathrooms.

Clean the World’s mobile showers provide another option. The private units, which don’t require water or electrical hookups, feature porcelain toilets, painted walls, natural light, air conditioning and heating and, yes, hot water. A single shower session lasts 20 minutes.

CTW staffers and volunteers are stationed at the trucks, ready to clean them between uses and answer questions.

“It provides individuals with dignity and the opportunity to take care of themselves,” says Sean McBurney, regional president of Caesars Entertainment, which has now worked with Clean the World for 11 years.

Each trailer can provide about 50 showers per day. Tanks are dumped at night, refilled in the morning, and sanitized between showers. The units travel all around Clark County, paying weekly visits to shelters, nonprofits and resource centers for six to seven hours a day, starting in the mornings.

And the response, Seipler says, is heartwarming. “Lots of smiles, lots of happiness, lots of joy,” he says.

“It’s cool to see that reaction to something we take for granted every day. When somebody hasn’t taken a shower for eight days, and they think that one job interview is the thing that’s going to change their life, and in some cases it is … it’s like, man, all we did was put in some pipes and some showers and give them some soap. They had to do the rest.”

Seipler says he’d like to see the trailers converted into one-stop resource shops: showers, washer and dryer units, on-site testing and vaccines, a private room where individuals can meet virtually with case managers for wrap-around services.

But, McBurney reminds people, homelessness is a “large and complicated problem” that will require multiple solutions—and collaborators. “Clean the World and Caesars are helping to partner with others to create the solution, which requires a lot of people’s involvement, a lot of organizations’ involvement to solve the core problem,” he says. “This is just one component of it.”

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