Shirley Raines, a social media creator and nonprofit founder who dedicated her life to caring for people experiencing homelessness, has died, her organization Beauty 2 The Streetz said Wednesday. She was 58. <\/p>\n
Raines was known as \u201cMs. Shirley,\u201d to her more than 5 million TikTok followers and to the people who regularly lined up for the food, beauty treatments and hygiene supplies she brought to Los Angeles’ Skid Row and other homeless communities in California and Nevada. <\/p>\n
Raines’ life made an \u201cimmeasurable impact,\u201d Beauty 2 The Streetz wrote on social media. <\/p>\n
\u201cThrough her tireless advocacy, deep compassion, and unwavering commitment, she used her powerful media platform to amplify the voices of those in need and to bring dignity, resources, and hope to some of the most underserved populations,\u201d the organization said. <\/p>\n
Raines’ cause of death was not released, but the organization said it would share additional information when it is available. <\/p>\n
Raines had six children. One son died as a toddler \u2014 an experience that left her a \u201cvery broken woman,\u201d Raines said in 2021 when she was named CNN’s Hero of the Year. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s important you know that broken people are still very much useful,\u201d she said during the CNN award ceremony. <\/p>\n
That deep grief led her to begin helping homeless people. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would rather have him back than anything in the world, but I am a mother without a son, and there are a lot of people in the street that are without a mother,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I feel like it’s a fair exchange \u2014 I’m here for them.\u201d <\/p>\n
Raines began working with homeless communities in 2017. On Monday, Raines posted a video shot from inside her car as she handed out lunches to a line of people standing outside her passenger window. She greeted her clients with warm enthusiasm and respect, calling them \u201cKing,\u201d or \u201cQueen.” <\/p>\n
One man told her he was able to get into an apartment. <\/p>\n
\u201cGod is good! Look at you!\u201d Raines replied, her usual cheerfulness stepping up a notch. In a video posted two weeks earlier, she handed her shoes to a barefoot child who was waiting for a meal, protecting the girl’s feet from the chilly asphalt.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s homelessness crisis is especially visible in downtown Los Angeles, where hundreds of people live in makeshift shanties that line entire blocks in the notorious neighborhood known as Skid Row. Tents regularly pop up on the pavement outside City Hall. Encampments are increasingly found in suburban areas under freeway overpasses. A 2025 survey found that about 72,000 people were homeless on any given night across Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n
Crushow Herring, the art director of the Sidewalk Project, said Raines was both sentimental and protective of the homeless community. The Sidewalk Project uses art and peer empowerment programs to help people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been getting calls all morning from people, not just who live in Skid Row but Angelenos who are shocked\u201d by Raines’ death, Herring said. \u201cTo see the work she did, and how people couldn\u2019t wait to see her come out? It was a great mission. What most people need is just feeling dignity about themselves, because if they look better, they feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raines would often give people on the street a position working with her as she provided haircuts or handed out goods, Herring said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time a year or two goes by, they’re part of the organization \u2014 they have responsibility, they have something to look forward to,\u201d he said. \u201cShe always had people around her that were motivational, and generous and polite to community members.\u201d <\/p>\n
Melissa Acedera, founder of Polo’s Pantry, recalled joining Raines every Saturday to distribute food when Beauty 2 The Streetz was first getting started. Raines remembered people’s birthdays and took special care to reach out to transgender and queer people who were often on the outskirts of Skid Row, she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to think of Shirley when I\u2019m there,\u201d Acedera said.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Raines was named the NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Social Media Personality. Other social media creators lauded her work and shared their own grief online Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMs. Shirley was truly the best of us, love incarnate,\u201d wrote Alexis Nikole Nelson, a foraging educator and social media creator known as \u201cblackforager.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shirley Raines, a social media creator and nonprofit founder who dedicated her life to caring for people experiencing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":551632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[242022,347,171,57,7265,158,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-551631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-242022","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-homelessness","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-u-s-news","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}