The public restroom near City Hall gets plenty of use. During business hours the units are havens of drugs and prostitution, and often filthy. Skip to content Environment Overdose Crisis Homelessness. But among the 25 freestanding units, several have been routinely closed for a week or more because they were regularly hijacked by junkies and sex workers. Even when used by legitimate patrons, the toilets have been hard to keep up to modern sanitary standards. How messy are we talking about?
One indication: Homeless people in the Tenderloin say they are so repulsed by the conditions inside that they avoid using the bathrooms, preferring to relieve themselves on adjacent sidewalks, alleyways and bushes. People use these for sex, shooting up, everything! Drugs are commonplace in the units, as they serve as convenient, private spaces that cannot be unlocked from the outside β ideal for getting a quick fix.
In more than a dozen visits to four public restrooms over the last month, a Public Press reporter found two where hypodermic needles were strewn across the floor. At the self-cleaning facility in Civic Center Plaza, just steps from City Hall, the automatic door stayed open just long enough for one man to come out and another to go in, while a woman who remained inside entertained each for up to half an hour.
Rules posted on the bathroom limit occupancy to one adult at a time, with a minute maximum. JCDecaux recoups the investment by selling ad space on the outsides of the bathrooms, as well as on more than kiosks throughout the city. What was intended to be a service for poor residents without access to basic hygiene, as well as a relief for tourists, has become a health hazard for undaunted patrons and the staff who clean and maintain them.
The facilities are designed to clean themselves during a second automatic cycle in which a cleaning solution is sprayed on all inside surfaces. The loads of garbage and human waste that end up everywhere often remain, soaked with detergent, until a human janitor bags them. Public Works spokeswoman Chan insisted that the city was not responsible for the maintenance, cleanliness or safety of the facilities. As a result the facilities, which frequently go in and out of service because of mechanical trouble, trash or police activity, are shuttered by the city.
