City can support business, meet ambitious climate goals by asking the experts
9 min read
Presenter: If the city hopes to meet its climate goals by getting people out of their cars and walking, there’s going to have to be some new infrastructure. KEPW’s Todd Boyle walks through the city every day.
Todd Boyle: I walk every day in South Eugene. I take a walking route that has lots of toilets and every quarter mile there’s a toilet, public toilets, there’s two public toilets and lots of private toilets in case, you know, ’cause of my medical condition. I have unpredictable, you know, needs.
[00:00:29] But it’s so great to just go into these, totally clean, there’s never a mess. There’s always plenty of toilet paper. These are great, great, public restrooms. There’s one at the children’s park in Amazon Park, and one down there by the baseball fields at 24th and Amazon Parkway.
[00:00:45] And so the other ones are in Sundance, the YMCA, the restaurants up and down Willamette. Sometimes I use the supermarket, Capella Market, you know, but it’s great. You know, you’re never more than two minutes from a toilet on the entire walk. This is South Eugene, right? Little piece of heaven.
[00:01:02] Presenter: The chair of LEAGUE, the Lived Experience Advisory Group for Unhoused Engagement, Richard Self:
[00:01:08] Richard Self: Martha Bryson has been in the advocacy work now some 45 years, and she will tell you that the same issues that she started advocating against are the same issues we’re advocating against right now.
[00:01:28] Todd Boyle: You know, my silo is antiwar and I would say the same thing about antiwar work. It’s just a permanent project, you know, and there’s no—
[00:01:35] Richard Self: There’s not an end in sight to it. No, you know, if you ask Martha about bathroom access, that goes back 45 years. It shouldn’t be something that we’re still dealing with, but we are. Where can people go? This is something that is, again, about 45 years old or more, you know.
[00:02:00] Presenter: At the February LEAGUE meeting, Martha Bryson:
[00:02:03] Martha Bryson: You know, they had a homeless film at Park Blocks. It was put on by the city and they had two or three different staff people there. And it’s when they had the bathroom that was painted like Superman’s changing room out there and I needed to go to the bathroom. It was 7:30 at night and it was locked.
[00:02:28] And so I went to one of the people who work for the city and they had two port-a-potties but they weren’t wheelchair accessible. And I said, ‘Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that the city won’t come unlock that, even in the Park Blocks in the evening, when you have a city-sponsored event? And they go, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Where do you go if you have to go to the bathroom?’
[00:02:51] And these were people setting up the film or the audio-visual equipment. And they said, ‘Oh, we have to go over there and use that port-a-potty over there.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but I’m in a wheelchair, so you need to be more mindful,’ and they said, “Well, we can’t do anything about it.”
And I said, ‘Yeah, well, you can tell them you had a citizen tell you that you need to have wheelchair accessible bathrooms open and all the time, not just when you’re having an event that’s run by the city.’
[00:03:25] And they just can’t even understand that concept.
[00:03:28] So, in ’89 I moved from San Francisco to Long Beach (where you’re from, Richard) and we were monitoring no bathrooms being opened at gas stations and restaurants and places. And this wasn’t even about homeless people. So this, the County of Los Angeles made a regional ordinance that said if you’re open to the public you have to provide a bathroom period for all businesses.
[00:04:00] Now this helped with people in cars needing to be able to use a bathroom at a gas station or at a convenience store, so it impacted everyone.
It’s sort of like the woman who said, ‘I can’t go shopping downtown. My favorite stores are in downtown Eugene, but there’s no public bathrooms available for my grandchildren to use. And so we just don’t shop down there.’
[00:04:29] So it isn’t just homeless people that is part of this no bathroom issue. It’s everyone who wants to support the businesses and the movie theater and the plays, where you go see plays, it affects everyone.
[00:04:49] And if we need to hire more people to go and clean up the bathrooms on a regular basis, let’s do that. The answer is not to lock them. The answer is to get more cleaning crew.
[00:05:02] Presenter: That’s activist Martha Bryson, who has been working on restroom access for the last 45 years. Todd Boyle:
[00:05:09] Todd Boyle: Actually, 45 years ago, just an anecdote is that I lived in my truck in front of Monroe Park. And in those days, they didn’t close the restroom at night, and it was open 365. And, I used the restroom. You know, I just parked right on 10th about three or four cars in from the corner, and I just stayed there for like six months.
[00:05:30] And actually, most of the time, I actually peed out of my door because it was cold to go over to the bathroom and it killed all the grass all around the front of my truck and nobody ever hassled me and nobody ever towed me.
[00:05:40] And then when I had to poop in those days, you know, there was lots of newspapers. There actually was a 5th Street Market where you could go and hang out all day. There was lots of good people there and coffee and everything and lots of newspapers.
[00:05:50] And so I’d always pick up one or two newspapers and use them in my van, just squatting on a poop on the newspaper and fold it up and take it to the nearest trash can and toss it.
[00:06:00] Presenter: Richard Self:
[00:06:01] Richard Self: I can tell you after being on the streets for over a decade myself that I am grateful every time I go to the restroom that I’m not getting chased out, that somebody’s not knocking on the door to tell me to get, hurry it up and get out of there. (Yeah.) A lot of stuff like that I don’t need to deal with now that I’m housed, but I continue to be grateful for it every day just because it’s those little tiny things that make a huge difference.
[00:06:29] Todd Boyle: When I go to a restaurant and I ask if I can use the restroom, I have never been refused in my entire life. And that’s because I’m a white man. And I feel like, you know, that’s a privilege and I kind of feel like there’s so many people who are not allowed to use the restroom. They say no. And so what’s that all about? You know? Well, I don’t want to be a part of a racist society. I don’t want to be that way.
[00:06:54] Richard Self: Well, it started actually with the black tar heroin that used to run through the streets here in Eugene in the ’80s. And there was always bad batches of that. There were, and I mean by bad as they had a little too much heroin in them and people were doing their regular dosage and dying because they had no idea that that regular dose was more lethal than anything.
[00:07:19] And of course they’re dealing with the same thing with fentanyl now, but the Monroe Park bathrooms were the first bathrooms to close because of that. And that’s the same with the downtown bathrooms.
They have a series of bathrooms in downtown that are public restrooms that not port-a-potties, real actual restrooms. But you know, God forbid somebody homeless might use them or somebody might do some dope in there.
[00:07:46] Once while I was homeless, I went to the McDonald’s on 6th Street. And my intent wasn’t necessarily to go to the bathroom. I think I was trying to get out of the rain, (A) and (B), get something to eat because I had some cash.
[00:08:02] Now around that restaurant, around the McDonald’s in the parking lot was a security guard with a gun and a badge running around pretty much looking for the unhoused so that they could chase them off the area.
[00:08:17] So then I got into the restaurant, ordered my food, in order to use the restroom, you needed to make a purchase. And then there was a code on the receipt of your order that you would have to give the front counter lady or whoever to get in the restroom.
[00:08:40] So you got all this, you got a security guard outside, you got all these rules just to get to the restroom, a code, you had to get buzzed in by a little button after you gave them the code and all of this was to prevent somebody to go use the restroom and be a junkie, right?
[00:08:57] So I decide, well, while I’m here, might as well take advantage. So I went into the stall to go use the restroom and sure enough, there’s a rig on the floor and there’s blood on the walls and all of this prevented nothing.
[00:09:11] Presenter: Todd Boyle:
[00:09:12] Todd Boyle: So I go to the McDonald’s fairly often and I just walk right up to the counter and say, ‘Hey, could I please use your restroom?’ And they always say yes, and you just go back in there and they have never said no. Yeah, just go in there and ask them if you can use the restroom and they’ll say yes if you’re a white man, if you’re an old white man. But if you’re homeless, they’re going to say, ‘No, get out of here.’
[00:09:32] Presenter: At the February meeting, Lane County’s liaison to LEAGUE, Amanda Borta:
[00:09:37] Amanda Borta (Lane County, LEAGUE liaison): We have a big plan for our next meeting, our March 7 meeting, where I’m organizing a panel discussion to talk about bathroom access. Sarah Koski is going to attend from LTD. She’s been very active in this issue and has had a number of community conversations around this with different people.
[00:09:56] We’ve reached out to the Chamber of Commerce, how businesses might be able to help us with this topic or find creative solutions. We also have a city of Eugene staff. Sarah Koski might be sending it to a number of other people who would be good for the conversation, and she connected us also to First Christian Church.
[00:10:16] And then we have a community advocate who had reached out who’s very interested in this topic. And so I invited her to attend as well. And she’s just very interested in moving this forward. And then I was also planning to hopefully maybe reach out to maybe Lane County Public Works.
[00:10:31] So, yeah, we have a number of people. So, I’m hoping that will be a really robust discussion.
[00:10:36] Richard Self (LEAGUE, chair): That would be great. (It’s exciting.)
[00:10:39] Presenter: Advocates have long been asking the city where the homeless can go. Now they’re also asking: Where can they go when they’ve got to go? The Lived Experience Advisory Group for Unhoused Engagement will start trying to answer those questions with a panel discussion March 7. The answers will not only support our neighbors on the streets, but could also support local businesses, while helping the city meet its ambitious climate goals.
Image courtesy PortlandLoo.com: “The Portland Loo® is designed specifically to prevent problems that are commonly experienced with public toilets. The sleek and modern kiosk discourages crime with graffiti-proof wall panels and open grating. And they’re easy to clean, with commonly used components that are easy to replace or upgrade.”
