Albuquerque Proposes Bill to Shower Homeless

State Rep. Stephanie Maez, who represents a section of Albuquerque, recently introduced a bill that would put $200,000 toward constructing and deploying a bus equipped with showers and restrooms.

At last count, there were 1,170 homeless individuals living in Albuquerque. More than 10 percent of them were children, and an even larger percentage were veterans.

Restrooms can be a difficult challenge for officials trying to balance the desire to prevent public urination and defecation with the fact that bodily functions don’t magically cease to exist for homeless people. Many cities lack a sufficient number of public restrooms to serve their homeless populations, and most have even fewer (if any) public showers.

With no bathroom of their own and few public options, the result is entirely expected: people have no choice but to go in public. But rather than providing more facilities for the homeless, most governments are instead seeking to throw people in jail for needing to use the bathroom.

Full Article: Think Progress

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