Expert: Council’s direction removing portable toilets from homeless encampments denies basic Human Rights

A local professor is calling on the city to use some of its $58.8M budget surplus to help with the homeless issue, CTV London's Daryl Newcombe has more.

Homeless Londoners admit to CTV News they’ve resorted to using public parks as bathrooms after City Council ordered the removal of portable toilets from several encampments last week.

Rob, a 49-year-old who has struggled with homelessness for a couple years said if he can’t get into a business or shopping mall, “I go outside somewhere, basically. It’s not good. I don’t feel comfortable. I’d rather use an inside facility.”

Jenna, 35, describes the desperation and humiliation she’s experienced without the portable toilets, “It’s terrible. [I’m] embarrassed because, you know, it’s not nice to have to go outside like that. We should have washrooms available to us - everyone has the right to privacy.”

City Council ordered the discontinuation of stationary service depots that provided food, water, support, and portable toilets to encampments and instead funded a mobile model for delivering basic needs to the unhoused.

The new mobile model will include relocating portable toilets periodically between locations.

However, Shawna Lewkowitz PhD candidate in the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory (HEAL) at Western University believes the decision created a serious equity issue.

“The removal of the toilets takes away a basic Human Right that they are entitled to,” Lewkowitz explained. “We can’t provide them with shelter (because) we obviously don’t have enough housing or they wouldn’t be living in encampments. The least that we can do is provide them with toilets, water, and food.”

She added that requiring unhoused women to walk through parks and encampments at night to find privacy breaks city council’s commitment to make London a Safe City for Women and Girls.

“This city has a strategic pillar, as part of their strategic plan, for a safe city for women and girls,” Lewkowitz pointed out. “The removal of those toilets puts women, trans, and non-binary people at more risk.”

Council switched to the mobile model of delivering basic needs after a serious encampment fire and amidst ongoing complaints from neighbours that the toilets and stationary depots were attracting and clustering tents.

However, one week after the toilets were removed from Watson Street Park the number of large tents and makeshift shelters appears relatively unchanged.

Lewkowitz explained, “People are there for other reasons than a public toilet. What the toilet provided was an option for people to go [to the bathroom] safely, securely, and with dignity.”

On May 13, City Council will decide how it will reallocate a record $58.8 million dollar surplus from the 2024 municipal budget.

Lewkowitz believes there’s no excuse not to spend some of that windfall on the dignity of vulnerable Londoners living in encampments, “At a time when we’re facing this kind of surplus and we’re removing toilets from parks where people live, that’s an issue. We should be investing in the basic needs of folks.”

Last week, outreach workers were telling Londoners living in Watson Street Park and Chelsea Green Park that bathrooms are available at the Salvation Army Centre of Hope (at the intersection of Welllington and Horton streets) and at some agencies in the Old East Village.

On Friday, London Cares told CTV News that the new mobile model requires outreach workers to walk to each tent offering basic needs, a process that’s taking three times longer than stationary service depots that could serve 50 people in an hour.