A Victoria councillor is asking the province to invest in a 24/7 bathroom at a homeless encampment on Pandora Avenue.
As council’s downtown liaison, Coun. Dave Thompson said he hears on a weekly basis from people at nearby businesses, churches and condos who have to clean out urine and feces from their doorways, gardens and sidewalks.
“I don’t think anybody would choose to go in a place like that if they had any other good options,” he said.
Thompson has written a letter to the Housing Ministry highlighting the need for overnight washroom access for those sheltering on the 900-block of Pandora.
Bathrooms at Our Place Society are open between 7:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. and facilities are available for people using a safe inhalation site on the block that is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but there is no place to go on the block overnight.
“It’s a matter of human dignity, but also of public health, and so I think it requires some pretty urgent action,” said Thompson, who wants to see a temporary, staffed bathroom installed on the block that is available 24 hours a day.
It could be as simple as a porta-potty, he said.
He wants the bathroom to be temporary, because he hopes the encampment is temporary and that people sheltering there are able to move into homes. It’s important that it’s staffed to prevent potential overdoses or other crises, he said.
Noting that the province’s Belonging in B.C. homelessness plan identifies support for encampments, including bathroom access, Thompson said he hopes it can work quickly to install facilities on Pandora.
Coun. Krista Loughton said there have been porta-potties on the block before and they were vandalized and challenging to manage.
But a porta-potty at a safe-inhalation site on the block has been in place since June, managed by SOLID Outreach Society, and hasn’t seen any significant issues, she said.
A simple solution might be to extend the hours of that porta-potty, which currently isn’t available past 8 p.m., and allow access to anyone sheltering on the block, Loughton said.
There is a porta-potty in Centennial Square, a few blocks away, but many people sheltering on Pandora aren’t comfortable leaving their belongings for long, because they risk having them taken by other campers or seized by bylaw officers, Loughton said.
A spokesperson for SOLID Outreach Society wasn’t able to comment Monday on the feasibility of extending the hours of the porta-potty at the safe-inhalation site.
Grant McKenzie, director of communications for Our Place Society, said the issue is complicated, because while access to washroom facilities is important, he’s wary of bringing in services that further entrench people in the encampment.
“Obviously you want people to have access to a washroom, but you don’t want them to become stuck on Pandora. I would rather that politicians focus on getting people off the streets and out of the parks, [to a place] where they have easy access to washrooms because they’re housed,” he said.
The Ministry of Housing said in a statement that it encourages the City of Victoria to continue discussions with B.C. Housing on a temporary or permanent public washroom on Pandora.
The province’s Belonging in B.C. plan is intended to prevent and reduce homelessness by adding 3,900 new supportive-housing units and 240 complex-care spaces across the province.
The province, B.C. Housing and the City of Victoria will continue to work together to address the root causes of homelessness to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, the ministry said.
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