An inconvenient truth about public washrooms

Whatever I write, eventually my path always leads back to Toronto Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong and his dislike of public toilets. He thinks of public washrooms the way Americans think of Sen. Ted Cruz on his way to Cancun: a blot on the landscape, a moral sinkhole, an unnecessary thing.

Here’s the problem: In lockdown, people are at home avoiding COVID-19. Restaurants are closed along with their washrooms, and so are many public toilets because they are viral magnets.

Delivery drivers are desperate, as are parents and children in parks and homeless people. And that’s where the washrooms come in. Councillor Mike Layton wanted to winterize public toilets in parks, Minnan-Wong said they would attract homeless people, and Layton’s motion was overwhelmingly voted down.

Back in 2014, Minnan-Wong stood in front of new city-built toilets at Cherry Beach holding up a homemade sign stating they cost “$600,000.” I remember marvelling at it then.

He objected to the cost — for various reasons a septic tank had been required — and a thoughtful design that included good ventilation and an overhang so visitors didn’t get wet on their trip to salvation.

Every building in Toronto should have an overhang. Trust Minnan-Wong — admirably budget-conscious but sometimes to a fault — to try to nip that in the bud.

Politicians should know never to hold up signs because they’re a target for online Photoshop mischief. The photos soon showed Minnan-Wong holding up signs saying, “I don’t like toilets,” and “Can you help me find my soul?”

I don’t know where people in desperate straits are finding toilets, presumably behind a tree with a fly-away grocery bag, but who knows.

It’s the same answer to the question of how people can afford to live in Toronto. They can’t afford it, but they still come to Toronto in large numbers and they live there. They find a way.

Homeless people in parks sometimes don’t find a way. They just do it outside, which is dreadful and makes other people unable to visit their neighbourhood parks. Downtown parks contain large encampments of homeless people, some of whom are mentally ill. It might be unfair, but they can be scary to a small woman walking alone.

I part company with Layton on the question of tent encampments. Emptying and closing mental hospitals in the 1970s to rely on group homes and illdesigned medication was an act of cruelty done for two reasons: to save money and to let smug liberals feel their values were sprinkling cities with love.

We need safe, warm places for troubled people. It’s expensive but we have no choice, not if we want people to take their children to parks for fun they sorely need in our desiccated, lonely lockdown lives. Successful cities find a middle ground — the commandeered hotel — and that’s the best solution right now.

If you don’t want to go to a shelter or hotel, you still may not live in a patchwork tent in a needle-strewn park or under the Gardiner or in one of those dreadful tiny homes that become coffins when fire breaks out because of faulty propane heating or arson. They are unsafe for everyone.

Public washrooms in lockdown winter don’t just attract the homeless; they attract all of us, including the unwilling. (Did you read about the Alaska woman who sat down in her outhouse and was bitten from below by a bear? I have a worse story involving a TTC driver but I won’t tell you that one.)

Imagine the heartlessness behind building a Toronto subway system without washrooms in each station. Back in the 1950s, the grimmest of councillors were signing off on those transit plans.

You can find TTC washrooms far away at the ends of lines, and at hectic BloorYonge Station. Well, some people with medical conditions can’t wait that long.

Humans are so pesky, so needy, always asking for things. Food, water, shelter, health care, schooling, washrooms, free tampons in washrooms, overhangs — when will it end? Next it will be umbrella stands and French Immersion, skating rinks and special dog parks for small yappy-type dogs.

It will never end and it shouldn’t. We are humans in a rich nation. Give us this day our daily bread, and some other stuff, too.