Dear Editor,
Audrey Figgins’ article on public toilets, and the lack thereof, hit a nerve in me (“Opinion: City Dwellers have an obligation to equalize sanitation access,” RC, Dec. 11, 2019).
Our city leaders spend money on so many frivolous projects but refuse to build and maintain restrooms. It is beyond belief that they dispense huge amounts of our tax dollars to beautify light rail stations but do not install restrooms there or anywhere else. What the hell!
This, of course, is a deliberate attack on homeless people. Gosh. If there are restrooms, people will actually use them. Can’t have that happening in Seattle, eh?
And the few public restrooms that do exist are deliberately made ugly, cold, dark and threatening. Stainless steel toilet seats and washbasins, wet floors, no paper. Just as designed for prisons and immigrant detention centers.
I’m really outraged about this. I’m an old man with an 80-year-old bladder and a fixed income; I can’t afford to buy a coffee every time I need to pee. And I can’t afford to carry Depends or a TravelJohn, as the city leaders must. Even the trees that constitute Plan B are disappearing.
I strongly second Ms. Figgins’ conclusion that the city “must ensure adequate health standards for all, regardless of whether a person has their own toilet to flush.”
Sincerely,
Henry Noble | Seattle
Read the full Dec. 18 - 24 issue.
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