PHLUSH

This contribution was left under comments on an earlier post by Carol McCreary, a stalwart citizen in Old Town. Volunteers have been making great progress working for provision of toilet facilities downtown. Carol writes:

Congratulations, Amanda, on the launch of your blog. It looks like a friendly spot, especially for people like us, PHLUSH, the public toilet advocates based here in Old Town Chinatown. We know what we need and now Council has come online with the SAFE (Street Access for Everyone) program and would like to see concrete progress on the comfort station front within the next few months. The challenge now is to how to proceed with respect to public process, social justice and best practice in an area where so many other cities have failed. We welcome ideas and roll-up-your sleeves contributions. The Office of the Mayor has called together a team to implement the recommendations of “Going Public: Strategies for Meeting Public Restroom Need in Portland’s Central City”. This superb report by PSU’s Relief Works is available here.

I hope we can get everyone comfortable with the issues so we can define what we want and make it happen. When downtown Portland has clean, safe, comfortable public restrooms folks will get out of their cars and onto public transit, visitors will find our streets even more convivial, and elders, kids and the invisivle populations of “restroom challenged” folks will walk and participate in fitness activities, and we all will have reclaimed a bit of the Common Good.

Thank you, Carol! I can’t resist adding my own contribution – one of my favorite web sites from the Old Country: British Toilet Association – Campaigning for Better Toilets for all.

Now that’s a cause we should all be able to get behind.