Seriously, folks. Lack of toilet access is an attack on human dignity. Even more important than the economic cost of urban toiletlessness are the unspeakably heavy social costs. Human dignity is compromised: no person should have to relieve himself or herself in a public place. Abuse is compounded when a person is also subjected to public harassment, law enforcement or a potentially physically threatening situation. The best way to understand the affront to human dignity that accompanies limited restroom access is to listen to the citizens who have experienced homelessness. The following conversations were recorded at Sisters of the Road. in the course of research for the book Voices from the Street: Truths about Homelessness. I don’t know what the laws are here, but I know when I gotta go, I gotta go, and I’m gonna find a tree to go behind. And every time I do it, I say, “Oh boy. Please don’t let me go to jail tonight. But what is a woman to do when she has to use the restroom at night-time, in the middle of the night, when everything’s closed up? And then, she goes and squats and uses the bathroom, what are you supposed to do? “Oh! You’re urinating in public!” Thousand-dollar fine. What am I supposed to do, hold it ‘til five or six o’clock in the morning, when something opens up? I mean, this really needs to be taken a look at it, it really is, it’s something really serious…….. it’s time to sit at a table and look at it, and do something about it. Basically, I…I would not eat or drink because I was afraid that that I would not have a place to the bathroom, that is…that is another really terrible thing when you are homeless. I have been kicked out of places, even a bar, I was about to go into the bathroom and they came and grabbed my arm and said, “You’re out of here, you’re not a client here, you can’t go to the bathroom here,” and I was told in quite a few places….., that I could not come in there anymore even though I used to phone also, so it is pretty humiliating. Those people caught breaking “civility laws” are arrested and fined. When they cannot pay the fine, they suffer added indignities and consume judicial resources. When homelessness is criminalized, people striving for a better life suddenly face new obstacles to finding employment and housing. Leaving citizens in poverty is an affront to the human dignity of everyone in society.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 09:28:34 +0000
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