VALLEJO – Dozens of unsheltered residents will gather at the Solano Dream Center on Saturday for Dignity Day, an all-around wellness fair where attendees can use mobile showers, get a free haircut, new clothes and shoes, a hot meal, a health check-up, and assistance with housing.
Attendees often line up before the 10 a.m. start time. When it opens, each attendee is partnered with a volunteer from a local church, who leads them through each station.
The name for the day comes from the idea that every person should be treated with dignity, regardless of their housing status.
Dr. Mike Hester, a retired pharmacist, said God called him to create the event in March 2021. He’s now the CEO of the nonprofit Solano Dignity and Care Foundation, which runs Dignity Day in Vallejo, along with similar events in other cities in Solano County.
“We’re trying to meet the basic human needs that we all have,” Hester said. “We’re providing healthcare. We're allowing people to shower. We're feeding them. We're clothing them. These are really all the things that Jesus said: ‘When I was naked, you clothed me, when I was sick, you cared for me, and when I was hungry, you fed me.’ That's straight out of Matthew 25.”
Solano Dream Center hosts a smaller version of the event on the second Saturday of each month, where they provide basic medical services, mobile showers, and haircuts. But Dignity Day, which typically happens in April and September, offers more resources and partnerships with organizations like the HomeMore Project, which donates some solar panel-powered backpacks to the event every year.
Around 80 people attended the first Dignity Day in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We had no idea what to expect because we’d never done it,” Hester said. “We thought if we got 30 people to come out, it’d be a home run.”
Now, he said, they average around 100 attendees at every event, which means they have about 80 volunteers on site to ensure it runs smoothly. Some of the volunteers come from churches as far as Sacramento.
They partner with nonprofits to hand out flyers for the event at various encampments. Hester said the city’s routine encampment sweeps are concerning because it often means they can’t locate people anymore. But he said word somehow gets out, and they often see a mix of newcomers and returning attendees at Dignity Day.
Hester said that planning begins months in advance of the event, with fundraising coming first. Dignity Day was formerly administered by the Fighting Back Partnership, a homelessness nonprofit that received grant money through the 2022 participatory budgeting cycle to address basic needs of unhoused people. That funding is now gone, Hester said, but the Fighting Back Partnership still partners with them to put on the event. This year, they also received donations from Kaiser Permanente, Raley’s, and local churches.
Once they have the funds, their organization takes inventory of what necessities they need to buy new shoes, underwear, tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks. Hester said it’s important that the items are all new so the attendees don’t feel as if they’re just being given hand-me-downs.
“There’s nothing better than seeing one of our unhoused guests come in, get cleaned up, get new clothes and shoes,” said Hester. “The looks on their faces, the smiles that they have. It’s a physical and mental transformation.”
Hester acknowledges that homelessness is a complex issue with no easy solutions. But by continuously connecting unhoused people to housing and health services, “We can make a dent in it, and we can change lives,” Hester said.
The health checks are done by volunteering physicians and medical students from Touro University. They can do a full physical, attend to wounds, and write prescriptions. They also provide naloxone, a nasal spray that can prevent an opioid overdose, and resources for rehab.
Resource Connect Solano is also present to connect people to potential housing options, which might not always be in Vallejo.
“I’ve known some people who leave the shelter and go to other cities if housing is available,” Hester said. But he added that many unhoused people who come to Dignity Day are longtime Vallejo residents, and they remain on the streets because they are hoping to secure housing where they call home.
According to the most recent point in time count in 2024, there are over 700 homeless individuals in Vallejo. Though the city has opened a number of new housing projects in the last few years, like Blue Oak Landing, the Broadway Project, and a navigation center, there are still not enough beds for the number of people on the street.
Hester is very aware of the negative feelings some people have towards their unhoused neighbors. But he said anyone who feels that way should come and see how Dignity Day works.
“Come see how human beings are intended to relate to human beings,” Hester said. He added that homelessness is not a personal moral failure. “It’s a failure of a system that doesn’t work for everybody.”
Dignity Day is on Saturday, April 11 and runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2166 Sacramento St. The event will be held rain or shine.
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