TikTok star known for bringing meals and respect to people on Skid Row dies at 58

This photo provided by Melissa Acedera shows Shirley Raines washing a person's hair in Skid Row, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Melissa Acedera via AP)

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.

Raines was known as “Ms. Shirley,” 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.

Raines’ life made an “immeasurable impact,” Beauty 2 The Streetz wrote on social media.

“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,” the organization said.

Raines’ cause of death was not released, but the organization said it would share additional information when it is available.

Raines had six children. One son died as a toddler — an experience that left her a “very broken woman,” Raines said in 2021 when she was named CNN’s Hero of the Year.

“It’s important you know that broken people are still very much useful,” she said during the CNN award ceremony.

That deep grief led her to begin helping homeless people.

“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.”

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 “King,” or “Queen.”

One man told her he was able to get into an apartment.

“God is good! Look at you!” 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.

California’s 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.

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.

“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. “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 would often give people on the street a position working with her as she provided haircuts or handed out goods, Herring said.

“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 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.

“It’s hard not to think of Shirley when I’m there,” Acedera said.

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.

“Ms. Shirley was truly the best of us, love incarnate,” wrote Alexis Nikole Nelson, a foraging educator and social media creator known as “blackforager.”

Rebecca Boone, The Associated Press