The pop-up public toilet facility that moved around downtown last summer is back, but now, it’s found a more permanent home: the corner of Main Street and Henry Avenue.
This year, the Downtown Winnipeg Biz partnered with Main Street Project to provide the service again — now, with a particular clientele in mind.
“In this area, we have a lot of people that have a need to use a public, accessible toilet,” said Melanie Drushko, the Downtown Winnipeg Biz’s director of transportation and place-making, though she added many people need access to public washrooms, not just the homeless or marginalized.
Beyond just being a place to humanely use the bathroom, the facility will be staffed by trained Main Street Project employees who will provide harm reduction services — including free condoms and needle exchange and access to opioid overdose reversal drug Naloxone — and outreach services for people who want help.
The area is a service hub for marginalized or homeless people, said Rick Lees, executive director of Main Street Project, pointing to Salvation Army, Thunderbird House and Siloam Mission as examples.
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Access to washrooms is a societal obligation, Lees said.
“This is a way of society meeting its responsibility to provide a very basic right that we all take for granted,” Lees said.
The facility will be open until the end of fall — hopefully, the next six or seven weeks, Lees said. During that time, it will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., seven days a week.
The bright orange structure was designed by BridgmanCollaborative Architecture, sponsored by the Downtown Winnipeg Biz. The Downtown Winnipeg Biz is looking into longer-term strategies for public washrooms.
“The city has in the past worked with various organizations on facilitating a public washroom in our downtown and would be open to considering similar proposals in future,” a City of Winnipeg spokesperson said in an email.
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