Churches, businesses and residents got to learn about the importance of 24-hour bathroom access in downtown Rochester over the weekend.
The ‘Flush Forum,’ as it was dubbed, was organized at First Universalist Church on S. Clinton Avenue. Organizers want to make downtown toilet facilities available to everyone, day and night.
Panelists at Saturday’s forum discussed how these toilets would serve Rochester’s growing downtown community, especially homeless people who otherwise do not have access to bathrooms.
Rev. Lane-Mairead Campbell is a minister at First Universalist, where they said the church has been advocating for 24/7 restroom access in the downtown area for the past decade.
Campbell said that they want to see a Rochester that is vital and caring for all people.
“We do have huge, economic disparities here in Rochester as downtown, we see this issue around 24/7 restroom access being important because if we’re not providing for people’s basic bodily human needs, we cannot expect people to be able to advocate for themselves in a larger scale,” said Campbell.
The moderator for the weekend forum, Nick Coulter, who is co-founder and executive director for the organization Person Centered Housing Options, said that he works closely with the Universalist Church on outreach efforts for the homeless.
Coulter said there aren’t a lot of places available downtown for people to use the bathroom.
“Any method that reduces the need for environmental services to clean up these areas where people are using the bathroom, any way that we can reduce the risk of people being put in jail for using the bathroom, outside, etc., any risks that can (be reduced), our agency is supportive of,” Coulter said.
The discussion on Saturday also included representatives from Portland, Oregon who have worked with that city to establish public toilets.
A firm timeline didn't come out of Saturday's forums, but advocates say they want to bring 24/7 public restrooms to Rochester’s downtown in 2024.
