Austin Startup Helps Create 'Pop-Up Care Village' For SXSW Showcasing Homeless Plight

AUSTIN, TX — An Austin startup is teaming up with a San Francisco-based nonprofit to create a Pop-Up Care Village catering to the homeless during the upcoming SXSW festival.

Austin-based Encast, creator of the WorkHERO charitable giving platform, is partnering with nonprofit Lava Mae of San Francisco for the facility delivering essential services for individuals experiencing homelessness as a way of showcasing efforts to alleviate the urban issue.

This coming Saturday (March 11) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 700 Red River St., the two firms will be joined by several businesses, nonprofits and local volunteers in staging the Pop-Up Care Village to provide homeless guests with essential services — mobile showers, food, haircuts, clothing, medical care and more.

Event collaborators include Mitscoots Outfitters, Mission Accomplished, Mealshare, Beyond The Grade, Adomo Nail Bar, Help Portrait Austin, Art From the Streets, Central Texas Food Bank, Unilever and KIND Snacks, officials said in a news release.

“Encast’s mission is to amplify giving and SXSW is the perfect opportunity to showcase what can happen when a community comes together to serve those experiencing homelessness,” said Leo Ramirez, Jr., CEO and Founder of Encast. “Piloting new programs like Pop-Up Care Villages in Austin plays a vital role in supporting our city’s efforts to alleviate homelessness, and Encast is delighted to partner with our collaborators to engage more businesses, nonprofits and individuals in giving back.”

Founded by Texan Doniece Sandoval, and widely known for its blue buses providing mobile showers and toilets on wheels for people moving through homelessness, Lava Mae piloted its Pop-Up Care Village program in 2016 to mobilize private sector, nonprofit and government partners together to bring more critical services to the street, officials said.

“Lava Mae is excited to bring our Pop-Up Care Village program to Austin – our first outside of San Francisco – and honored to partner with so many businesses, nonprofits and volunteers who share our commitment to bringing new innovations to better serve individuals moving through homelessness,” Sandoval said. “SXSW is an ideal setting to highlight creative new ways that for-profit and nonprofit sector partners can transform the way essential services are provided to our homeless neighbors and we hope it will inspire SXSW attendees and the broader Austin community to join us in this social movement.”

The city of Austin recently won a highly competitive $5.2 million-dollar grant from HUD to tackle youth homelessness and another $1.5 million from Bloomberg to tackle homelessness downtown. From 2015-2016, the homeless population in Austin increased from 1,832 to 2,197, a jump of 20 percent, officials noted.

Related story: Austin Gains More Than $2.2M In Separate Funding To Combat Homelessness

In addition to the March 11 Pop-Up Care Village creation, Ramirez will moderate a SXSW panel featuring Sandoval to discuss turning social impact ideas and intentions into action. “Shut Up and Do Something” takes place on Sunday, March 12 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the J.W. Marriott, Rooms 201 and 202.

More information and how to take part in Austin’s March 11 Pop-Up Care Village is on Facebook by clicking here.

Encast offers a cloud-based service for increasing and managing charitable giving by companies, employees, and individuals of all ages and experiences, officials said. Its HERO platform, a Giving as a Service (GaaS™) solution, enables fee free donations, charitable recommendations, social impact analytics, and flexible corporate social responsibility campaigns.

Lava Mae is a San Francisco-based nonprofit "...that is disrupting the way Communities see and serve people moving through homelessness," officials said. Founded in San Francisco in 2013, Lava Mae began by converting public transportation buses into showers and toilets on wheels to deliver hygiene and rekindle dignity. Today, Lava Mae is taking “Radical Hospitality” to the street by bringing humanity, innovation, and collaboration to the way services are provided to those experiencing homelessness.

>>> Portrait of homeless man in black and white by Leroy Allen Skalstad released into public domain, via WikiMedia Commons