Shirley Raines, the nonprofit founder and social media figure whose grassroots work transformed how thousands of people experiencing homelessness were seen and treated, has died. Her organization, Beauty 2 The Streetz, confirmed her death on Wednesday. She was 58.
Known widely as “Ms. Shirley,” Raines built a following of more than five million people on TikTok, but her real audience was found on the streets. Week after week, she showed up in Skid Row and other homeless communities across California and Nevada with food, hygiene supplies and beauty services, offering not just aid but dignity.
Her passing, the organization said, leaves behind an “immeasurable impact.”
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“Through 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,” Beauty 2 The Streetz wrote in a tribute shared online.
The cause of death was not disclosed. The organization said more details would be released when available.
Raines’ mission was deeply personal. She was a mother of six and lost one of her sons when he was a toddler, a loss she described as life-altering when she was named CNN’s Hero of the Year in 2021.
“It’s important you know that broken people are still very much useful,” she said during the CNN award ceremony.
That pain became the catalyst for her work with people living on the streets.
“I 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,” she said. “And I feel like it’s a fair exchange — I’m here for them.”
She began working directly with homeless communities in 2017, steadily building Beauty 2 The Streetz from a small outreach effort into a recognizable force. Just days before her death, Raines shared a video filmed from her car as she handed out lunches, greeting each person warmly and addressing them as “King” or “Queen.”
In one exchange, a man told her he had secured housing.
“God is good! Look at you!” Raines responded, her excitement unmistakable. In another recent video, she removed her own shoes to give them to a barefoot child waiting for food, shielding the girl from the cold pavement.
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Her work was shaped by California’s intensifying homelessness crisis, with downtown Los Angeles at its center. Skid Row remains home to hundreds of people living in makeshift shelters, while tents frequently appear near City Hall and beneath freeway overpasses in surrounding neighborhoods. A 2025 count estimated that roughly 72,000 people were homeless on any given night across Los Angeles County.
Crushow Herring, art director of the Sidewalk Project, said Raines was fiercely protective of the community she served, combining empathy with structure and accountability.
“I’ve been getting calls all morning from people, not just who live in Skid Row but Angelenos who are shocked” by Raines’ death, Herring said in a report by the AP. “To see the work she did, and how people couldn’t 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.”
Raines also created pathways for people on the street to take on responsibility within her organization, Herring added.
“By the time a year or two goes by, they’re part of the organization — they have responsibility, they have something to look forward to,” he said. “She always had people around her that were motivational, and generous and polite to community members.”
Melissa Acedera, founder of Polo’s Pantry, recalled working alongside Raines every Saturday in the early days of Beauty 2 The Streetz. She said Raines made it a point to remember birthdays and intentionally reached out to transgender and queer people who often found themselves pushed to the margins of Skid Row.
“It’s hard not to think of Shirley when I’m there,” Acedera said.
In 2025, Raines received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Social Media Personality, a recognition that reflected how she used online platforms to drive real-world change. Following news of her death, fellow creators flooded social media with tributes.
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“Ms. Shirley was truly the best of us, love incarnate,” wrote Alexis Nikole Nelson, the foraging educator known online as “blackforager.”
