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18 years on, shower program brings comfort to Kitsilano’s homeless population

The weekly shower program at Kitsilano Community Centre has helped the area’s homeless population for about 18 years with some of the most basic, universal comforts: heat, coffee and camaraderie.

 Penny Rogers with an armload of towels at Kitsilano Community Centre, where she and 40 other volunteers have helped run a shower program for the area’s homeless population for 18 years.Penny Rogers with an armload of towels at Kitsilano Community Centre, where she and 40 other volunteers have helped run a shower program for the area’s homeless population for 18 years. Photograph By DAN TOULGOET

Quite a bit of fanfare has been devoted lately to a little-known program in Kitsilano that does a lot of good.

Faith in humanity restored, the tweets read. What a great new program, others declared.

Except it’s not a new program. And keeping things close to the vest is very much part of the point.

The weekly shower program at Kitsilano Community Centre has helped the area’s homeless population for about 18 years with some of the most basic, universal comforts: heat, coffee and camaraderie.

Penny Rogers is the lone volunteer who has been with the program since its inception. Each Saturday, Rogers and a rotating cast of volunteers provide a hot breakfast, clean clothes, toiletries and a bagged lunch to go to roughly 30 people.

“We like to keep under the radar, because our philosophy is that this program is where people can come and relax,” Rogers said. “They can enjoy themselves, meet friends and talk openly and feel safe.”

The program got started in the halls of St. Augustine’s Church in Kits. Members of the church’s social justice committee were watching a film on local homelessness and an interview subject mentioned how difficult showers were to come by.

It was a roughly 10-second clip in the film that compelled Rogers to act. She put the feelers out with other churches in the area, but none had the necessary infrastructure. Rogers then contacted longstanding homelessness advocate Judy Graves for suggestions, who then linked her up with community centre director Judy Andersen.

A match was made and off they went.

“They had their own private, little Saturday morning club,” Graves recalled. “They went way above and beyond anything I ever could have thought of. Penny was thinking from this maternal perspective — what would my family like, what would my kids like, what would my husband like?”

The early days of the program were lean and to the point. Outside of the showers, attendees were given a hot meal to take with them. Graves prepped volunteers on what to expect from people who’ve long been entrenched in homelessness. They’d have to get used to some swearing, remember names and remember their individual backstories.

“One of the most painful things on the streets is that nobody knows you, nobody knows your name, nobody knows where you grew up,” Graves said. “It’s so important to remember a name, even if it’s just a first name.”

The following years have seen expansion on a number of fronts: free haircuts, free shoes, help with filling out housing forms, getting formal ID and establishing spots for shopping carts and dogs.

A mobile health unit also visits twice a month with volunteer doctors.

“The beauty of that service is there is a continuum,” Rogers said. “There is good follow up for these people which sometimes we couldn’t do.”

Rogers has seen a lot of the same faces over 18 years. Most of them are men in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Some come from the Downtown Eastside, but the core group is from Kits.

“I’m really blessed to have a home, a family, people who love me and to live in Canada and in Vancouver,” Rogers said. “You just have to talk to these people like you would with a friend. There’s no line between us and them.”