We recently connected with Shauna Mcqueen and have shared our conversation below.

Shauna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My name is Shauna McQueen, and I am the Executive Director of a non-profit, Holy Smoke-Misfit Missionaries. Holy Smoke was founded by local comedians, who brought their talents into the tunnel, to not only uplift residents but also to have a fun time. Our charity slowly grew and expanded to include bringing food and supplies, with the ultimate goal of finding permanent housing for our friends in the tunnels. We now also provide our services to those who are homeless and living in Downtown Las Vegas.

The logic behind our approach (“The Holy Smoke Method”) is that by building relationships first without an underlying condition, people will feel comfortable asking us for what they need, (housing support, help getting an ID, mail, or reconnecting with their families), instead of the usual approach of offering rehab or similar services first. Through our method, we have helped numerous people get IDs, find permanent housing, and reconnect with families.

Holy Smoke is about building relationships and community first. We believe in humanizing homeless people and challenging the narrative that homelessness is a personal failing to be stigmatized. We have known the people we serve in the Las Vegas tunnels for years and consider them to be friends and family, often talking about life, our problems, and casual conversations during our missions.

Holy Smoke primarily serves four tunnels, and our mission continues with successful results.

Shauna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I first started volunteering with Holy Smoke when I first moved to Las Vegas in 2019. My husband and I had been homeless in Oakland, CA for a year and a half. With the help of family and some savings, we were finally able to move. A couple in our new apartment building told us they run a charity where they go to the tunnels to feed homeless people. We were new to Vegas and completely unaware of the Las Vegas tunnel system, thousands of miles of flood channels to redirect floodwaters, that many homeless people use for shelter to live.

On my first mission, I was surprised to see people make homes out of these tunnels, decorated with furniture, art, and normal home amenities to make the dwelling as comfortable as possible. The founder of Holy Smoke, Doc Love and his wife Theresa, had a great relationship with the people who lived there. We passed out food, socks, and just hung out for an hour talking and having a good time. After my personal experience with homelessness, I felt my calling for this work and an opportunity to pay it forward.

I started volunteering with Holy Smoke on a consistent weekly basis in 2021. I have many fond memories of our missions as well as tragic missions, where we learned that people we helped have passed away. Volunteering for Holy Smoke was important to me and became a non-negotiable part of my life. I even quit jobs that refused to allow me to volunteer for our Wednesday missions.

Early 2023, Doc and his wife separated; the charity was in jeopardy. Who was going to run it now? I strongly felt that Holy Smoke had done such great work and helped so many people, myself included, I couldn’t bear to see the charity cease to exist. After volunteering for years, I knew the locations of all the tunnels and the people who lived in them. I stepped up to the plate and ran the first mission without Doc, with me at the helm. It was a success, and it was decided to transfer the charity’s operations over to me.

Doc and his wife moved out of Las Vegas and I have been running the charity for two years now. It was very rough and overwhelming at first, as I have never run a charity before, let alone any business at all. I had to overcome my personal misgivings and develop myself as a leader. And also still being young (only 23 at the time), I had to let go of some immature feelings and desires to properly run the charity.

This is my second year running Holy Smoke and I have made mistakes, but overall, I have learned and overcome those challenges. On the business side, I reestablished business connections (sponsors and supporters of our charity), redid our website, and revamped our social media presence. We have expanded our volunteer network, and we now offer mail services for people in the tunnels. We also share resources with our “sister” charities and have connected with another organization that finds people permanent housing.

Our charity has done a lot of good work, but I think I am most proud of how our charity is changing the conversation surrounding homelessness in America. People see homelessness as a personal failing or drug addiction, but it is much more complex than that. People get disconnected from their social networks, from their friends and families, and the rest follows. Many people lose the paperwork that would help them find housing again, their IDs, birth certificates, and even social security cards. People take their IDs and personal identification paperwork for granted, but it’s nearly impossible to get all this back without a permanent address or help from friends and family, which many homeless people don’t have.

Homelessness is an issue that cannot be solved with criminal repression. It is a social failing, and becoming homeless is much easier than people think. It happened to me and took a year and a half to escape. I’m proud of our charity for exposing the bureaucratic maze that keeps people homeless. Through the Holy Smoke Method, we’ve helped many people escape homelessness and find permanent housing.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I often recruit new volunteers to join us on our weekly missions through social media. Our volunteers always have a great time and an eye-opening experience about the reality of homelessness in America.

When I first started running the charity, I was overwhelmed at the thought of managing others. I’ve never seen myself as a manager type and felt uncomfortable telling people what to do. I slowly became more comfortable at the idea of directing others.

It’s not as complicated or scary as it seems to oversee others or lead a big group. From the jobs I’ve worked, my worst experiences were always overbearing management or management who demoralized the team with unclear expectations and mistreatment, but still expected high quality work. Being mean, cruel, or overbearing does not produce good results. Businesses who operate on this strategy tend to have extremely low team morale.

To put it simply, treat others how you want to be treated. People always respond positively to kindness and clear direction. I am very communicative with our volunteers. I check in the day before the mission to make sure they will still come. I respond quickly and ensure they know the meetup location, addresses we’ll be going to, and how long the time commitment will be. If they have to leave early, I totally understand. After all, they’re volunteering their time and doing this completely for free, so I’m extremely appreciative.

All in all, be nice to people, clear, and communicative.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I took over this charity, I didn’t feel entirely ready to step up to the plate. I was insecure about my abilities and at the time, I just wanted to play Apex Legends 6 hours a day and be aloof.

At first, I was delegating too many responsibilities to new volunteers that I should have taken the lead on. I should have gotten them acclimated to our charity’s mission and the sensitive work we do. Instead, I was too enthusiastic to have some of the load of running a charity taken off my back and put on someone who was equally unprepared, if not more, than me. In the end, it predictably did not end well and I lost those volunteers.

I had to unlearn the belief that I wasn’t a leader. I had to unlearn my feelings of self-doubt. I also had to accept that I took on a large responsibility and people were counting on me. When you own a run a business, it ultimately falls on you to make goals and complete those goals. Yes, some responsibilities can be delegated to others, but at the end of the day, it’s your responsibility to make sure things get done. You’re the leader.

I finally accepted that I had to put down Apex Legends and run this charity. I no longer waste hours of my day playing games. In general, I needed to realign myself to focus on real life activities and not games even before I started running Holy Smoke. I prioritize my charity in my life, as it should have always been. It took a while for me to learn this lesson, but I’m glad I learned it quickly before more problems arose.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://holysmokevegas.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holysmokevegas?igsh=a3JoZDJiNThodXU5
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@holysmokevegas1407?si=vc35f9j3P8ryAS8V
• Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@holy.smoke.vegas?_t=8pRnVqFhasl&_r=1