Lava Mae is turning old buses into bathrooms and showers for San Francisco's homeless

"Welcome to the land of broken dreams," Doniece Sandoval's cab driver said to her over his shoulder as they entered San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, the locus of the city's homeless population and services.

During her more than six years in San Francisco, Sandoval had been through that area hundreds of times, but the driver's starkness rattled her, and she looked with fresh eyes out at the street-weathered faces, the bodies strewn on the sidewalk.

Not a single one of these people dreamed of being homeless when they were little, she thought, flashing back to her own adolescence and the close bonds she'd made while mentoring youth impacted by systemic poverty. Where were the individuals she'd worked with now?  

Several months later, she heard a woman crying on the street about never being clean again, and the roots of Sandoval's idea started taking hold. A well-timed hot shower can do a lot more than wash away physical dirt. Meanwhile, San Francisco only had a tiny number of public stalls available.

"Hygiene brings dignity and that opens up opportunity," Sandoval says.

That was three years ago. Today, Sandoval runs a thriving nonprofit called Lava Mae that is revamping old buses into private bathroom and shower stalls for the nearly 7,000 people in San Francisco experiencing homelessness. 

Six days a week, Lava Mae's two buses and one trailer roll up to different spots throughout the city. Equipped with bathroom and shower stalls that hook up to fire hydrants, they provide  20 minutes of privacy, cleanliness, comfort, and "radical hospitality" to those who need it.