He said these new services will help people feel like people again, but he won’t claim that he changes the lives of those who use his service.

“There is a lot of different reasons why people end up in the streets, and there is no magic pill that will fix everything. But we’re trying to help the best way we can,” Austin said.

Austin said that for a while they had a “take a number” system, he said it was efficient but an incorrect way to treat his friends and neighbors.

“It was impersonal ... so it’s been a lot better since we take people’s names,” Austin said. “We get to know them a little bit better and sit down and have good conversations and hopefully help out as we speak to them.”

Hygiene products such as shampoo, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and feminine hygiene products are available for the homeless as they wait for their turn on the truck.

“It’s fantastic, it’s wonderful. The way that these people say the word ‘shower,’ the way that they announce the word has so much more emotional connotation to it,” said David Draper, strategic director of Shower to the People.

Christopher Mullen, 44, who walked five miles to get a shower, said that water and a bar of soap can give hope.