San Diego County Grand Jury • 2022-2023

Downtown Area Public Restrooms in the City of San Diego Stop Kicking the Can Down the Road

Published: May 24, 2023 22 pages Consolidated Report
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Findings 8 findings

F01
Current restroom facilities in the downtown San Diego area are inadequate to provide 24/7 public access.
F02
There is no comprehensive plan for restroom siting or assuring best practices are instituted for current and future restroom facilities in the downtown San Diego area. Fact: Academic institutions, such as SDSU and UCSD, have capacity to engage with government and to assist in development of data-driven plans for restrooms. Fact: Downtown groups representing businesses, residents and economic development have interest in working with government to develop workable plans for downtown public restrooms. Fact: Advocacy groups for unsheltered populations have lived experience that add value to planning for access to public restrooms. San Diego leaders looking to lift state ban on pay toilets, CBS 8 San Diego, Jan 23, 2023, https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/san-diego-looking-to-lift-state-ban-on-pay-toilets/509-e29e4ecd-60f4- 4bc4-b019-e51036eebf1f 18 2022/2023 SAN DIEGO COUNTY GRAND JURY REPORT (filed May 24, 2023) Fact: The last effort to bring together a wide array of stakeholders on the issue of downtown public restrooms was in 2013.
F03
The City has not recently brought together partners including academia, private business groups, community associations, or homeless individuals/advocates to explore solutions for better access to public restrooms. Fact: The 2009-2010 GJ report, Homeless in San Diego, warned of disease outbreaks due to lack of adequate public restrooms, Fact: Poor sanitation is linked to spread of several infectious pathogens and has been cited as contributing to the hepatitis A and shigella outbreaks since the last Grand Jury report. Fact: The hepatitis A outbreak in 2017 was a factor in the deaths of twenty people. Fact: The hepatitis A outbreak cost over $12 million dollars and required ad hoc sanitation equipment rental, enhanced environmental cleaning and other costs.
F04
Adequate public restrooms may help mitigate outbreaks such as hepatitis A, shigella, and COVID-19. Fact: Access to convenient, safe, and well-maintained restrooms in the downtown area is important to tourists, local visitors, persons experiencing homelessness, and families. Fact: It is difficult to locate clean, open public restrooms in downtown San Diego due to the lack of adequate signage. Fact: The City’s web-based information regarding public restrooms is not updated often enough and does not contain enough information to reflect conditions in the field.
F05
Open, clean, and secure public restrooms are hard to locate throughout the San Diego downtown area. Fact: The 2014-2015 GJ recommend, develop, fund and implement a plan for additional 24-hour downtown public restrooms, establish and implement an adequate budget for safety and maintenance, and to establish a way-finding system.
F06
The City has encountered barriers in following its 1987 policy to site and encourage public restrooms in specific types of facilities in the downtown area. Fact: Private developers are not proactively siting, maintaining, and providing safe access to 24/7 public restrooms. 19 2022/2023 SAN DIEGO COUNTY GRAND JURY REPORT (filed May 24, 2023)
F07
City policies and agreements need to be followed and enforced to assure accessible and adequate public restrooms. Fact: There is no average cost per restroom available, since different public restroom facilities have varying structures and services (i.e., security or not, city vs contract staff, maintenance needs, private agreements). Fact: City of San Diego restroom costs are hard to evaluate since expenditures are spread over different line items and different departments.
F08
The City has not performed a comprehensive economic analysis on the costs of constructing, securing, and maintaining public restrooms, which would include current costs attributable to not having adequate restrooms (e.g., sidewalk cleaning, municipal code enforcement)

Recommendations 8