ST. LOUIS • Nothing can lift your spirits better than a good, hot shower.

Anyone knows this. Jake Austin knows this. He’s a pastor who has worked with homeless people most of his adult career, and grew up around the soup kitchen his parents operated out of a little church in Mount Vernon, Ill.

So one day in fall 2014, when Austin, 31, was distributing soap and hygiene supplies to the homeless in downtown St. Louis, he offered a bar of soap to a man who came up to the table. The soap is nice, the man said, but where would he use it? He had plenty of clothes and food, but he hadn’t had a shower in two months and had a job interview in two days.

Austin was embarrassed he hadn’t thought about this earlier. “People can get food and clothes, but if they haven’t had a shower in three months, they can’t get a job even flipping burgers,” he said.