Laura Glesby photo
Carl Ferris at Ninth Square community meeting: "Feces all over the place" in portable restrooms on the Green. "It all gets blamed on homeless people."
Formerly unhoused activists, Ninth Square business owners, and city officials agree: New Haven needs a downtown public restroom that actually gets cleaned.
That was a key takeaway of a community meeting about the challenges associated with rising homelessness. The meeting took place last Friday morning, and was hosted by Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) at its 266 State St. drop-in center.
The dialogue included about 25 Ninth Square community members ranging from a local real estate developer to a board game small business owner to people who have personally been homeless.
At the prompting of DESK Executive Director Steve Werlin, the meeting’s attendees spoke about concerns of the Ninth Square neighborhood that may be related to homelessness — and traced many problems to the lack of a constantly-available public bathroom.
Hurley Group's Kristin Dolan, right, with other Ninth Square community members.
Kristin Dolan, the vice president of the Hurley Group real estate company located on Crown Street, spoke of “lots of outdoor defecation and urination in my parking lots.” She attributed this problem to the fact that “people need somewhere to go.”
MakeHaven’s Lior Trestman noted that human waste in public spaces isn’t a problem related just to homelessness.
“There are lots of drunk college kids peeing on the sidewalk,” he said. He added, “I personally would appreciate a bathroom on the way coming back from the train station.”
While the city does offer port-a-potties on the New Haven Green, formerly homeless activist Carl Ferris said, those temporary bathrooms are “disgusting.”
Ferris, a member of the homeless rights advocacy group U‑ACT, described “feces all over the place” and piles of syringes in the available port-a-potties.
When Yale students walk through the Green, Ferris said, he advises them to use the bathroom in City Hall instead.
“It all gets blamed on homeless people,” Ferris said, but he argued that problems with public defecation stem from the neglect of those toilets.
Alexis Terry: "They don't care."
“That’s a reflection of the city,” said Alexis Terry, a U‑ACT member who was recently unhoused. “They don’t care. They haven’t invested into this.”
The city’s homeless services coordinator, Velma George, said that the city is interested in building a public bathroom on or around the Green. “What we are trying to figure out is funding,” she said, noting that she’s interested in collaborating with Ninth Square community members on figuring out how to finance a public bathroom.
City Coordinator for the Homeless Velma George.
Attendees floated various suggestions for what such a restroom could look like: a flushable port-a-potty, a permanent building, a moveable trailer.
Those who spoke up agreed that, whatever form it takes, a downtown public restroom should be clean and welcoming to all.
George noted that the key to the success of the city’s Power in a Shower program, which brings portable showers to the Green in warmer months, is the fact that the showers are “cleaned after every use.”
Southern Connecticut State University social work professor Amy Smoyer, who has researched the city’s Power in a Shower program and the prospect of public bathrooms, said she’s found that “what’s really critical is that the facility is attended.”
The city should employ someone full-time, she argued, to “make the space safe and sustainable.”
Dolan suggested that developers could potentially incorporate public restrooms into future buildings constructed downtown. “These developers have deep pockets,” she said. “They have the lobby attendants already.”
DESK's Evan Serio takes notes about participants' ideas.
Elm City Games' Matt Fantastic.
Win Davis, who heads the Town Green Special Services District downtown business coalition, argued that a stronger police presence downtown is necessary — but that New Haven police aren’t currently able to provide the needed staffing levels. He pointed to the police union’s lack of a contract and relatively low pay compared to other Connecticut towns.
Matt Fantastic, the founder of Elm City Games, offered another strategy for addressing disruptive behavior in the vicinity of businesses.
Fantastic keeps the tables outside Elm City Games open to anyone who wants to sit there. Most people “I’m happy to have sit there,” they said. But occasionally someone will be “super mean to our staff,” or someone will use drugs on the premises “and I have parents who won’t take their kids back” to the store as a result.
Fantastic said they want to avoid roping off the tables to customers only. They have found “great success” in trying to form relationships with the people who regularly sit at the tables.
They argued that “as soon as you become a real person to each other” and develop a “community energy,” people are more likely to respect communal norms about how to act in local businesses and public spaces.
One idea proposed by Fantastic is to “pay for a neighborhood liaison,” someone with personal experience being unhoused who “knows people on the block.”
“Halfway between a Liberty outreach worker and a Town Green Ambassador,” Werlin said.
Addressing DESK leaders, Fantastic reframed the question of how to dispel unwanted behavior in the Ninth Square: “How do we help your clients feel as much a part of the community as anyone else?”
This makes sense, if done European/South American style: have the bathrooms available, but with an attendant and charge $1 dolar per use. That way the bathroom use is used when actually needed and someone is there to clean it that will be paid accordingly. We all want clean, free bathrooms but we have to be realistic as well as we all work for money to pay for our things, and a bathroom attendant is no different