It’s a question Allen Eppley, longtime co-owner of Sparrow Hawk Cookware on North Tejon Street in downtown Colorado Springs, hears all the time: “Where’s the bathroom?”

“There’s a constant stream of customers asking,” he said,  while working the floor of his popular gourmet kitchenware shop last week. “It would be nice to be able to direct our tourists to a nice place.”

Too few public restrooms in Colorado Springs’ key shopping districts and elsewhere in the city isn’t a new complaint, but there is a new movement to see if something can be done.

The situation doesn’t just affect tourists and local shoppers. People who are homeless bemoan what they say is a glaring dearth of proper facilities, particularly at night. And with the absence of a commode, some admit to relieving themselves elsewhere — on sidewalks, in alleyways, behind trees and other public spaces.

Sometimes it can’t be helped, say people who live on the streets; other times drugs or mental illness render people unaware or unfazed by what they’re doing.

“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” said Don Briggs, who sleeps outside.

In fact, he cheekily advises people not to look too closely around a certain tree in a downtown park.

But seriously, not having enough public restrooms can be frustrating and shameful for people who primarily live outside, said Barbara Berry, who was formerly homeless.

Because when you can’t find a proper location to do your business, “you have accidents,” she said. “That’s really embarrassing.”

City Council member Nancy Henjum, whose district covers part of the central core, agrees with the general sentiment.

“We need more public restrooms — there’s absolutely no doubt about it, especially in our downtown area, and not just for the unhoused population but also the general population,” she said.

In an updated, yet-to-be-released “Homelessness Response Plan,” Mayor Yemi Mobolade includes exploring the financial feasibility of more facilities. City staff revealed plan highlights during a “sneak peek” at the document in August.

The plan was intended to be finalized by the mayor’s Sept. 9-10 “State of the City” addresses. But its release has been on hold pending the arrival of a new hire, Aimee Cox, who starts the job of the city’s chief housing and homelessness response officer on Monday.

While Mobolade’s proposed 2025 budget, which he unveiled last week, includes funding for additional police officers, more staff to clean up homeless encampments, and continued municipal funding for police and fire departments’ homeless outreach initiatives, the first draft does not include money for more public toilets.

Henjum said she hopes that during this month’s budget negotiations between City Council, the mayor and the public, dollars can be reallocated — meaning taken out of one column of the general fund and moved to pay for additional community restrooms and trash cans.

“I’m very interested in findings ways in this budget for that, for the dignity and public safety of all people,” she said. “It’s a cultural need.”

City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed 2025 budget at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 at City Hall, 107 N. Nevada Ave.

Library erects fence

Members of the Colorado Springs Homeless Union, a grassroots group of people who are actively homeless or who have been homeless in the past, also are lobbying for the city to up the lavatory count, as criticism and concern about people defecating and urinating in public places have become more prevalent.

Shopkeepers and employees of stores and other businesses in the downtown and Old Colorado City districts spoke to The Gazette in May about finding — and having to remove — feces deposited around their establishments.

It’s also been problematic for Pikes Peak Library District’s Penrose Library. The downtown campus has been undergoing safety and security modifications and is nearing one of the final improvements: erecting a 7-foot-tall fence around the entire perimeter.

In addition to preventing illegal camping, vandalism and drug use on the grounds, another primary reason cited in the project proposal is that staff are subject to cleaning up human waste daily around the library.

However, “Fences don’t get rid of the root problem,” said Nikki Flemate, a licensed clinical social worker who advocates for homeless people. “It’s trying to solve the problem with infrastructure without actually creating public restrooms.”

While inside restrooms are available to anyone whenever the library building is open, there are no accessible public bathrooms in the area at night, homeless union members said.

Also, many local businesses do not let people who are not customers use their restrooms, and some businesses install locks on restroom doors that require a code or key to enter.

That creates a lose-lose scenario for people needing to tend to their bodily functions, say union members.

“Nobody likes the smell of poop or pee, but it’s going to come out, and you have to go somewhere,” Briggs said. “People hate you for it.”

‘Good’ vs. ‘bad’ homeless

Headaches can arise with public restrooms, though, Henjum said.

“There are challenges because they’ve been used for drug use, such as meth, and they become contaminated,” she said.

Last year, methamphetamine residue was found in bathrooms at the downtown city bus terminal and Penrose Library, necessitating closures for remediation.

Dorchester Park, near the city’s largest homeless shelter south of downtown and adjacent to a creekbed where illegal camps can be found, has been heavily affected by misuse.

Over the past five years, picnic pavilions have been fenced off, the main parking lot off South Nevada Avenue barricaded, restrooms boarded up and trash cans removed due to incidents of vandalism, sleeping in restrooms and Dumpsters, lighting fires in trash cans, illegal drug activity and prostitution, police have said. Restrooms in Antlers Park and Vermijo Park also are permanently closed because of abuse.

The people who do that are “the bad homeless,” said Shane Hood, who has lived on the streets in the past.

“I’ve been telling people for years if you allow the good homeless in an area, they’ll run off the bad homeless, but business owners laugh at me,” he said.

A small minority of the homeless population violate trash cans, restrooms, portable toilets and private property, police Lt. Brian Steckler, who oversees the Police department’s outreach team and shopping district patrols, said for The Gazette article that published in May. If they’re caught and identified, they receive a ticket, he said.

Closing for season

This month, the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department is preparing to close the majority of 40 permanent bathrooms in city-owned parks. Most are open from Memorial Day through October, though up to eight will remain available year-round, based on weather, said Eric Becker, park maintenance and operations manager.

“They are designed for seasonal use only; they are not constructed in a way to handle extended periods of below-freezing temperatures,” he said.

Facilities in parks are winterized in a three- to four-week process that ends with their closure. Signs will be posted when that happens, Becker said.

“The number of park visitors in the winter drops off significantly, and most citizens are understanding of the permanent restrooms getting winterized,” he said.

About 45 portable toilets are available at the busiest parks and trailheads, such as Monument Valley, Memorial and John Venezia parks, Becker said.

In regional parks, El Paso County crews strive to keep a minimum of one restroom — which may include portable toilets — open year-round, a spokesperson said.

“We do winterize, shut off the water so the toilets do not flush in several bathrooms that do not have heat to avoid freezing,” the spokesperson said, adding that vandalism has been reduced with door-lock timers that lock at night.

Ideas for change

Steps the city has taken to mitigate wayward human waste include trimming trees and vegetation along trails so people are more visible and keeping parks’ restrooms open as long as possible.

Still, “Anywhere you have people camping in public spaces and don’t have a public restroom available, that (public urination and defecation) will be an unintended consequence and, unfortunately, we have experienced that over the years,” Becker told The Gazette in May.

Will more restrooms reduce raw sewage, though, is a question on some minds. Old Colorado City’s Bancroft Park got a makeover in 2020, which included adding a self-cleaning restroom kiosk with three contemporary stalls.

Yet some merchants along West Colorado Avenue, including two hairstylists, say even though the restrooms are just a few blocks away, they continue to encounter human feces in the mornings near their businesses, which they called “disgusting.”

“I understand people’s attitudes, but what’s the alternative when you can’t find a restroom?” Briggs asks.

Some people have ideas for solutions.

Eppley, the downtown shop co-owner, said he’d like to see the type of restrooms that are in Bancroft Park added to Acacia Park and America the Beautiful Park.

“Something like that would be great,” he said. “I think they’re lovely, and people would like them.”

Self-cleaning restrooms are used in other cities, said Hood, and seem to work well.

Why not let homeless people clean the public restrooms, suggests Kandy Levin, a member of the Colorado Springs Homeless Union. The group has adopted a section of trail and every month picks up litter, needles and other refuse from America the Beautiful Park south to Dorchester Park. Volunteers could extend their work to include restrooms, Levin said, if they were provided with cleaning supplies.

“It would give some dignity back to people,” she said.

Kathy Evans, a retired nurse who assists with the homeless population’s health care needs, presents this concept: Why not provide plastic bags — similar to doggie poop bags but larger — in key areas? So, when there’s no restroom around, people can squat out of sight and capture the muck in a disposable bag that can be placed in a trash can.

“Maybe if we had human poop bags, that could help the situation,” she said. “It would be a different kind of waste management.”