Mobile shower trailer rolls into Newark, bringing ‘spa-like’ experience to homeless

A nonprofit group has started offering free showers for the homeless who gather in the small park behind Newark Penn Station. 

Once a month, volunteers with Archangel Raphael’s Mission park a silver trailer with two private bathrooms at Peter Francisco Park, handing freshly-laundered towels to those who want to take a shower. 

“It's refreshing, it makes me feel better, you know? And it's some normalcy from everyday life,” Tanja Vega, 43, said before taking a shower on a recent Saturday. Vega has been living on the streets for two weeks. 

“I like to take a shower every day,” she added. “I would like to see this here, like every day, if it was possible.”

John El-Maraghy, who co-founded Archangel Raphael’s Mission with his wife, said he wanted to focus on improving health and hygiene services for people in need and quickly realized offering showers was a critical first step. 

“It’s a very rare service, a very coveted service,” El-Maraghy said. He said mobile hygiene programs are a recent phenomenon, and only a handful of groups offer them in the state.