Dunno but my town has a port a potty on park land behind an elementary school. Where soccer teams play. Guess they'd rather maintain a POP then have people peeing in the woods. Probably a good idea. |
DC has a shortage of public toilets apart from libraries, preferring to outsource this service to Starbucks and supermarket bathrooms as well as sidewalks and bushes. |
The restrooms at the rest stops in Germany were not individual pods -rather stalls that were completely automated and self sanitizing. I also loved the rotating shrink wrapped toilet seats. DC is so behind. Pardon the pun! |
| Sorry about the bench and having see it all the time. Blech. |
TY. I remember not so long ago when we were reading about SF's poop and pee problems with horror, but now stepping over people poops has just been normalized . |
This is what upsets and saddens me. How can we as a developed society think this is OK? Are we going to continue to deteriorate until we are like countries like India? I backpacked there 30 years ago and never thought we would have the same conditions in the US. It is a massive public health risk. |
Yes, beautiful country but urine, spit, poo in so many communal spaces due to abject poverty and crowdedness and lack of facilities. And every kind of communicable disease DC has Covid funds up the wazoo and a budget surplus. I don't understand the turning the other way to problem like this as well as unsanitary and illegal encampments. |
You live in a fantasy land created by talk radio. |
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There are two separate issues--
-normalizing homeless encampments in shared city spaces -the need for clean, safe public restrooms for everyone They may overlap, but the former should be challenged while the second can be supported |
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I used to be a courier. I often delivered packages in downtown DC. At rush hour. I also often had to go to the bathroom. As someone else mentioned, there are almost zero public bathrooms in DC. In the suburbs you can pop into a fast food restaurant or a gas station, no problem. Not in DC unless you buy stuff and as a courier I was always on a difficult time schedule that did not permit me to wait in line and buy stuff in order to use the restroom.
I remember one time in particular, when I had been unable to plan properly, mostly due to traffic, when I literally pulled into an alley in the business district and peed beside my car. And by the way, I am a lady. |
A public restroom in DC will be usable for exactly one day before it is severely vandalized and made unusable by people doing their business on the floor in sinks and elsewhere not meant for urination or defecation or a homeless person moves in. Don’t believe me, see Union Staion. |
True. Which is why DC should a) address (appropriately move along) homeless folks who prefer to live in restrooms than shelters or hospitals b) buy advanced self-cleaning toilets and pay for the cleaning, maintenance upkeep We have a budget surplus and can address both. Or, we can just accept being a s*-hole. Pardon the pun. |
Don't some states give homeless people bus tickets and send them out west where the clinate is nicer. Why not do that? |
DC absolutely should encourage and help recent arrivals to return home..also, sleeping in park encampments should not be allowed. |
That's where part of San Francisco's homeless problem came from - police rounding up the homeless and giving them one-way bus tickets, "Hey wanna go to California? It's warm there!" They also send them to the nearest city, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were right wing sheriffs sending homeless to DC. Instead, the homeless should be sent back to the communities they came from. Homeless shelters need to be better figured out - addressing the things that make homeless people feel safer on the streets than they do in shelters. And, kicking them out on the streets every morning is a bad plan. And in addition to homeless shelters, maybe communities should provide stipends for family members to take them in. If they are seriously mentally ill they should be institutionalized. |