For the second time in two years, city council in Sault Ste. Marie has rejected a motion in support of public washrooms downtown, with an eye on encouraging those living on the street toward the city’s shelter. But that has resulted in people defecating in public, says Coun. Lisa Vezeau-Allen. “I walk through the alleyway every day from King Street to Queen Street, and I see human feces every day,” Vezeau-Allen said. Her motion at Monday’s meeting would have taken an inventory of the publicly accessible toilets for unhoused people and looked for solutions within the community. It was defeated 7-3. Councillors opposing Vezeau-Allen’s motion said there is a link between washrooms at large-scale homeless encampments, like the one seen near downtown Sudbury, and the Sault’s lack of large encampments. Coun. Luke Dufour said the idea is to encourage the unhoused toward city shelters and away from downtown. Unlike other cities in the north, Dufour said there are no large encampments in downtown Sault Ste. Marie. “One of the reasons for that is that we don’t provide those kinds of services in a centralized location,” he said. “We spend a lot of our efforts really trying to steer folks towards the shelter -- and into interaction with services.” Access to washrooms would encourage people to keep living on the street, Dufour said.d But Vezeau-Allen said her motion didn’t call for adding washrooms downtown. “The motion never stated anything about adding to the inventory,” she said. “It was to take an inventory and look at gaps and areas of need. An area of need is not geography.” Mike Da Prat, president of United Steelworkers Local 2251, said their building also has a problem with human waste. Da Prat said he has contacted the city about the persistent problem and has been disappointed with the response. “We have an existing problem, and we admit that it’s a complex problem,” he said. “However, the position of city council is simply that to do nothing is the best thing to do, which is absolutely inappropriate.” With just two council meetings left before the end of term, Vezeau-Allen said she won’t be putting a similar motion forward again, but said she will look for other ways to address the issue.
