We celebrate the launch of NYC Restrooms 4 All with a post by co-founder and Roosevelt Institute Fellow, Maeve Flaherty. If you’ve spent any time in New York City, you’ve had that sinking sensation — a desperate need to go to the bathroom, and no place to go. You look around and there are...
In a recent segment on NPR affiliate KLCC, Oregon journalist Denise Silfee points out that the UN General Assembly affirmed the human right to water and sanitation in 2010 while the United States failed to join the majority of nations voting for the resolution. In her interview with people sheltering in a Rest Stop...
We're all in this together, aren't we? We all poop and pee. How about joining PHLUSH as a donor or volunteer?
This case study illustrates how the lack of a public restroom on a key route can render transit unusable for many riders and what community members can do to fight back. When it opened in late 2016, riders changing buses at an expensive new transit center in Washington State were dismayed to find they...
The reluctance of Southern California’s local governments to provide public restrooms has resulted in a public health crisis. (For updates, see comments at end) San Diego County reports Hepatitis A is the cause of death of 16 people, 14 of which were unhoused citizens living in the city’s East Village. Today 444 San Diegans...
Public toilets have long been at the forefront of human rights advocacy in the United States. During the past year, the transgender community and parents of young children who identify with a gender other than their birth sex have successfully advocated for laws requiring gender-neutral toilet rooms to ensure greater privacy. This expansion of...
“The restroom thus becomes a tool for figuring out just how a society functions – what it values, how it separates people from one another, and the kinds of trade-offs that come to be made,” says sociologist Harvey Moltoch. While we at PHLUSH believe in safe and accessible toilets for all people (families, children,...
Living houseless in an urban environment requires personal savvy and logistic skill. Days are often an endless series of searches, lines, and waits: finding the next meal, a safe place to sleep, a public restroom. Here at PHLUSH, we see toilet availability as a human right and advocate for building urban public restrooms that...
Students from Portland State University’s Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Affairs and Planning, have recently compled a project on the consequences of toiletlessness. After spending the winter academic term on background and planning, the Right to Relief team spent the spring term exploring the issues in collaboration with PHLUSH. They hit the streets, announced...
World Water Day is celebrated worldwide today, March 22 and here in Portland on Saturday. As advocates of sustainable sanitation we have trouble with the custom of using our drinking water to transport our human excreta, household graywater, industrial chemicals, and storm water runoff to the wastewater treatment plant. Portland’s Bull Run water is...
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