When Butch Varnum needs to use the bathroom during the day in downtown Bangor, his only option is to access facilities in the city’s few public buildings, such as the library and transit center.
Once those public buildings close, however, his only choice is to find a quiet, concealed place to relieve himself, which carries the additional risk of being seen by someone, such as police or a child.
“It’s disappointing, humbling and you feel a lot of shame,” said Varnum, who has been grappling with homelessness for about 14 years. “We don’t want to be doing that on someone’s property or near a business, but it’s not our fault there are no public bathrooms available 24/7.”
Varnum is one of many homeless people in Bangor who have few reliable places they can go downtown to use a bathroom without needing to purchase something. Those options include the Bangor Area Transit Center, Bangor City Hall and Bangor Public Library, all of which close at night.
While being able to access a bathroom easily is important for those without stable housing, plenty of clearly marked and accessible restrooms are vital for anyone. Without them — and especially without facilities that are available after regular business hours — people are being forced to ask local businesses for help or relieve themselves in public spaces.
In July, Bangor city councilors considered using about $80,000 in pandemic relief funding to install public bathrooms downtown. Some councilors said an additional bathroom would reduce the burden on the transit center or library, but others felt the existing restrooms in public buildings suffice.
Ultimately, councilors didn’t make a decision, but city staff are “pulling together additional information as to availability and options for further discussion with the city council on this topic in September,” Debbie Laurie, Bangor city manager, said.
The city previously offered outdoor portable bathrooms from April to August 2021 that were placed in Broad Street Park and behind the Hope House, mainly for the city’s homeless population. The bathrooms cost $70,000 annually and were provided and maintained by Casella.
Casella removed the portable bathrooms in August 2021 after trash and needles were disposed of in the unit and human waste covered the walls, Courtney O’Donnell, assistant city manager, said last year.
Last summer, the city said staffing limitations hindered its ability to add more bathrooms downtown after a local homelessness advocate called for the city to provide and maintain ample and adequate bathrooms. Doing so, he argued, is a public service not just for those who are homeless, but for everyone, especially those who may need to use the bathroom frequently.
Ben Treat, Bangor Public Library’s director, said the building’s bathrooms see frequent use, but the library has also struggled with people using the facilities inappropriately, such as using substances in the bathrooms, and it has led staff to restrict access to some of the building’s restrooms.
The restrooms on the library’s second and third floors are locked to limit the areas where staff need to patrol regularly, Treat said. The bathrooms in the children’s area are restricted to children only, and an adult who may need to help them.
The two multi-stall bathrooms on the main floor remain open to the public and are patrolled every 15 minutes by library maintenance staff to ensure they’re not being used inappropriately, Treat said.
“If a public restroom is unmonitored, then there will be times when it is used inappropriately, and sadly, times when people overdose in the restroom with the door locked, possibly dying as a result,” Treat said. “If there is a way to tell that the restroom is occupied by an unresponsive person without eliminating reasonable privacy expectations in the restrooms, that would be ideal, and potentially life-saving.”
In the first eight months of this year, the library has requested police issue criminal trespass orders to 30 people, Treat said. Of these, 12 were related to substance use in some way. Library staff have also administered naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, six times this year.
Most of those incidents happened during the winter months when the library operates as a de facto warming center for people who are homeless.
Summer Allen, who owned Valentine’s Footwear on Main Street for 12 years before closing earlier this year, said customers frequently asked to use her bathroom, or asked to be directed to facilities.
Though she wasn’t required to offer a public bathroom in her store, Allen said she would sometimes allow customers to use it. Doing so made her uncomfortable though, as patrons had to walk through her inventory storage area that contained thousands of dollars of merchandise and was close to an emergency exit.
Sometimes she’d see someone relieving themselves downtown. One day, someone defecated in the hallway outside her business, Allen said.
“That was particularly memorable,” she said. “I joke about it now, but that day was not a good day.”
As a downtown business owner, Allen said part of her morning routine before opening her store included picking up trash and discarded belongings that were left near her store. Sometimes that debris included bottles of urine.
Allen would be in favor of adding clearly marked public bathrooms that would be available in populated areas and open 24 hours a day, as they’re “important for economic growth in any community,” she said.
“It’s an easy way to make people feel comfortable and welcome,” Allen said. “Saying there are restrooms available in a library or city hall is not the same as providing clearly marked restrooms in areas with lots of foot traffic.”
While ample public bathrooms are important, Allen and Treat both understand that monitoring and cleaning a public restroom regularly can be a demanding and expensive task for city staff.
And though Bangor isn’t as popular as tourism destinations like Bar Harbor or Portland, “how could we ever be when we don’t have those kinds of facilities?” she said.
Portland, Maine’s largest city, has at least 30 public bathrooms scattered across the city, including two on Peaks Island. Most of the restrooms are in downtown Portland or popular recreational areas like Payson Park. Those facilities, which include portable toilets and standalone structures, are listed in a map that is available on the city’s website.
Lewiston, Maine’s second largest city, considered installing a standalone public bathroom, similar to what Portland has, in an effort to curb public urination in city parks and the parking garages in 2022.
The restrooms Lewiston looked into purchasing, called The Portland Loo, were created and sold by the city of Portland, Oregon. The metal kiosks are designed to be easy to clean with graffiti-proof walls and open grating that show how many people are inside.
The city pulled back in May 2022, however, when the purchase and installation cost for a singular bathroom turned out to be $223,000, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported.
The city has not found an alternative that is more affordable to install and maintain, but city staff are “visiting with other municipalities on what they have built and to determine what has and has not worked,” Angelynne Amores, Lewiston’s director of marketing and communications, said.
Similar to Bangor, Lewiston’s only public bathroom options are those in city hall and the public library, Amores said.
