Potty Problems

I work in the downtown core of a decent-sized city.  Like most cities of its size, there is a substantial homeless population living in and around the city.  I'm usually asked "do you have a dollar?" one or two times each day, usually when I'm on my way to or from lunch.  I've mastered the limited eye-contact, "I'm sorry" response because I don't want to lie and say that I don't have a dollar, but my heart still breaks every time I'm asked or walk past someone holding a sign asking for food or money. 

This week, as I was walking from my building to my parking garage after work, there was a woman on the sidewalk rearranging her belongings in a filled and overflowing shopping cart.  In a somewhat panicky voice she asked me, "Do you live here?"  I responded that I did not.  Then in an urgent and rushed voice she said through gritted teeth, "I have to go to the bathroom so bad."  Unfortunately, it was after 7 p.m. and all the nearby businesses were closed and the building I work in doesn't have any public restrooms.  I tried to help her figure out where she could go she decided to head to the service station a few blocks away.

This was the first time it occurred to me that homeless people have real potty problems (although I guess I should have figured that would be the case the few times I've walked into an elevator in the parking garage and the smell made it evident that someone had used it as a urinal).  There are very few public restrooms available in the city and even those that are available would require someone to leave his/her shopping cart and most of his/her worldly possessions behind to use the bathroom.

Ironically, the very next morning when I was driving to work, while I was waiting for a stoplight to turn green, I noticed out of the corner of  my eye what looked like a bare bottom flashing me.  I looked over to see what it was, and it was in fact a bare bottom.  I was an indigent man nestled bottom first against a (very) small tree relieving himself.  It was a disturbing way to start the morning, but reinforced in my mind the fact that the homeless have more problems than I knew about.  Not only do they have to figure out where to sleep where they won't be caught and where to get their next meal, they have to make sure they stay close enough to a bathroom at all times so as to not be caught in a lurch, bare bottom to the world.