Among the homeless on the sometimes-surly streets of northeast Kansas City, Mo., hardly anyone knows the place as the Cherith Brook Catholic Worker house. Rather, they call it the Shower House because four mornings a week, 20 or more people come to feel clean again.

For the Rev. Eric Garbison, the Presbyterian pastor who helped to found Cherith Brook in 2007, there's something sacramental about the showers as well as the five meals a week served there to up to 50 people.