Laura Glesby Photo
Alex Nieves checks out a freshly-cleaned portable toilet on Thursday afternoon.
An accumulation of feces, old clothes, and drug paraphernalia prompted the city to increase the number of portable restrooms on the New Haven Green from two to six, as city officials search for a more permanent bathroom solution.
Those six units mark a small expansion of restroom options at the central quasi-public park, which serves as a hub for local bus transit, the site of various festivals and cultural gatherings, and, for many, an outdoor place to sleep.
Many who spend time on the Green have vowed not to use the portable bathrooms, citing rancid conditions exacerbated by substance use and vandalism.
Meanwhile, a coalition of unhoused activists, homeless services organizations, and neighborhood businesses has been pushing for a cleaner and more sustainable public restroom system in the long-term.
U-ACT Photos
Conditions in the portable toilets earlier this week, as photographed by U-ACT members.
Laura Glesby Photo
A line of new portable toilets on the Green.
Up until Wednesday afternoon, only two portable bathrooms had been available on the Green, by the intersection of Chapel and Church.
According to city spokesperson Lenny Speiller, the vendor that the city contracts to operate the portable toilets — a veteran-owned company called GI John’s — arrived to clean the two units on Wednesday and found the two units to be “damaged, in poor condition, and beyond the regular level of service that the staff and truck deployed could address on site.” The company reported that they were unable to immediately address the concerns due to the severity of the issues.
“They were flooded with piss, fecal matter,” said Alex Nieves, who said he “tip-toed” into the portable restrooms on Wednesday while waiting for the bus. On Thursday, he described piles of used clothes, drug paraphernalia, and human waste in the toilets.
“It was unusable,” said Carl Ferris, an advocate with Unhoused Activists Community Team (U‑ACT) who had also reported the problem to the city. “Feces all over the place. Feces and needles. It was ridiculous.”
Though the New Haven Green is privately owned by a group of “proprietors,” the city manages the portable restrooms at the park. Employees with the Parks Department responded to the company’s complaint by zip-tying the two units shut.
Ferris said he quickly witnessed someone snip those zip-ties open with a knife in order to use the bathroom.
Then a few hours later, shortly after 4:30 p.m., another U‑ACT activist Roosevelt Watkins snapped a photograph of the portable toilets wrapped shut in caution tape.
The next morning, the units had disappeared altogether. On Thursday afternoon, G.I. John’s returned to the Green with one of the portable restrooms. And by Friday morning, six portable units (including an accessible one) were lined up, all of them relatively clean.
That period from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning, when the bathrooms were closed shut or gone altogether, revealed how much some New Haveners rely on continuous access to a bathroom downtown.
It was “terrible” sleeping outside downtown Wednesday night without access to those two toilets, said a man who identified himself as Pierre on Thursday morning.
A 64-year-old from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Pierre said he’s been homeless in New Haven for more than two decades. When the library closes for the night, he said, there’s often nowhere else to use the toilet for people sleeping outside downtown than those two portable bathrooms.
Maintenance A Persistent Concern
Thomas Breen Photo
Pierre and Big John on Thursday morning after a bathroom-less night.
Pierre was sitting with his friend, a man who called himself Big John, on a bench by the patch of dirt where the two portable bathrooms had been removed on Thursday morning.
Big John said that the problem with the bathrooms on the Green is that a few people make an absolute mess out of them. “Some of the people out here, they go in and get high,” and leave behind “needles and crack bags.” Others defecate all over the place, he said, leaving the toilets in a nearly unusable condition.
Big John, a native of North Carolina who has spent nearly his whole life in New Haven, said he now has a place to stay, though he’s been homeless before. What he’d like to see is more regular maintenance at any toilets put out on the Green. He also suggested the portable toilets be moved to a spot on the Green within the sight of the mayor’s office at City Hall. If the mayor had to see what goes on at these toilets, he said, then they’d be better taken care of.
Speiller said that every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, GI John’s conducts maintenance on the plastic toilets including “cleaning, a full pump out of contents, replacement of sanitizing agent, sweeping, general disinfection and deodorization, minor repair work and graffiti removal, and restocking of toilet paper.”
On Friday morning, Downtown resident Alonzo Harvin predicted that even after these cleanings, the new portable bathrooms won’t stay hygienic for long.
He had come to the Green with a friend of his, who asked not to be identified in an article, to sit on a bench and “enjoy the sun,” joke around with acquaintances, and people-watch.
The park is an often lively, sometimes peaceful place to relax, said Harvin — except that, in the case of the toilets, “it takes a few people to mess it up for everybody” with litter, vandalism, and potentially unsafe behavior.
His friend agreed. “Every time they clean them, people always disrespect them,” she said. “I will never use the Port-a-Potties here.”
What About A Permanent Bathroom?
Laura Glesby Photo
Alonzo Harvin: Clean toilets won't last long.
Meanwhile, advocates and city officials are searching for a more lasting solution than portable restrooms. Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) has been convening monthly public meetings on the subject with city officials, Ninth Square business owners, and currently or formerly unhoused activists.
At one of these meetings in December, city Homeless Services Coordinator Velma George said that the barrier to such a bathroom is coming up with the funds for a permanent and regularly-cleaned structure.
Speiller confirmed on Friday that the city is still working to “identify a more permanent solution than port-a-potties that provides individuals experiencing homelessness with safe, clean, and well-maintained bathrooms.”
Pierre implored on Thursday that before the city decides what should happen next with these portable bathrooms, city officials should talk to the people who use those toilets. “Give us an opportunity to speak for ourselves,” he said. “Don’t just take it away” and not tell people who use those toilets if and when they should be back. “We’ve got rights to speak up.”
How often were those toilets on the Green being serviced? (that's what they always look like!)
What happened to the phalanx of orange toilets at the 'protest side' of the Green, and 'who' were they for?)
When I used to rent Chemical Toilets for IDEAT VILLAGE (from the City Vendor), they were required to be cleaned daily. Just like the toilets in the school system, City Hall is in charge a Public Health Disaster!