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.
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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