Setting up places where the homeless and others can take a shower, use a toilet and wash their clothes will be discussed by a City Council committee Thursday.
Councilman Joey Manahan introduced Resolution 13-116, which calls on the Caldwell administration to look into hygiene centers.
"It’s a compassionate approach to very basic needs that people have, especially the homeless," Manahan said. "Next to having a shelter, people need a place to go to be able to shower, go to the bathroom, do laundry and just get clean."
The model appears to be working in Seattle.
The Urban Rest Stop, at 9th Avenue and Stewart Street in the heart of downtown Seattle, has provided toilets, showers and laundry facilities to the public at no charge seven days a week for more than a decade. Operated by the nonprofit Low Income Housing Institute, it is funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, city funds and private donations.
A 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer story reported the shelter cost $600,000 a year to operate, with about two-thirds of the funding coming from HUD.A second location opened in Seattle’s University District last year.
Manahan said he’s confident that such success could be duplicated in downtown Honolulu, Waikiki or other places where the homeless congregate.
He originally looked into the idea of paid, self-cleaning toilets as one way of helping the problem. But some mainland cities reported that those facilities turned into havens for illegal drugs and prostitution, he said.
A hygiene center, however, would have to be manned when the public could enter it, cutting down on abuse.
Locally, the Chinatown Business and Community Association joined with the River of Life Mission in November 2011 to provide a public toilet-only facility from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays during a 90-day pilot period.
Association founder and President Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock said the project cost $10,000 — half of which came from the city and the other half from the sale of T-shirts and private donations. The funding paid for a private security guard and a janitor, she said.
Toilet paper and soap were donated by River of Life.
More than 900 people used the facility, about 90 percent of them homeless, Shubert-Kwock said.
A hygiene facility in Chinatown would be a "win-win" for all parties, she said. "The money spent is worth it to keep our city clean and the needy served."
Connie Mitchell, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, said such facilities would be particularly beneficial for the working homeless, who are expected to maintain a level of hygiene and cleanliness in order to secure or maintain a regular job, Mitchell said.
The council’s Intergovernmental Affairs and Human Services Committee will discuss the measure at 2:30 p.m.
