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Preserve Public Restroom Access in San Diego

Safe, clean, free hygiene options for all

Access to public restrooms is a human right. We are calling on the City of San Diego and the County of San Diego to preserve access to public restroom facilities for all.

Background

Lack of access to public restrooms has long been a major infrastructure challenge and public health hazard – and more cuts to public restroom access is the last thing San Diego needs. Since 2000, five San Diego County grand jury reports have sounded the alarm on the potential for outbreaks of preventable infectious disease due to limited access to public restrooms, especially in areas where they are most needed. In 2017, a mishandled Hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego resulted in 20 people dying, with nearly 600 sickened. The San Diego County government ultimately spent approximately $12.5 million to address this public health emergency.

What’s Happening Now

Now, the City of San Diego is considering closing permanent restrooms and removing porta-potties in Mission Bay Park, Fiesta Island, Shoreline Beach, and Balboa Park. The City is also considering eliminating funding for the Neil Good Day Center – a lifeline for unhoused and marginally housed people that provides access to restrooms, showers, laundry, haircuts, an address to receive mail, and medical care. The loss of Neil Good would be devastating to the Downtown San Diego community. This is on top of existing cuts already made by the City in 2025 that have impacted Downtown San Diego, including: reducing the Civic Center Public Restroom’s hours from 24/7 to 6am to 10pm, closing the Gaslamp Quarter Public Restroom entirely, and removing porta-potties and handwashing stations across the Downtown and East Village neighborhoods.

Why This Matters

From runners and tourists to commuters, delivery drivers, families with small children, and unhoused people, public restrooms offer safe and necessary spaces to address basic bodily functions. The absence of public restrooms not only harms our collective public health, but also directly impacts many groups of people – as well as our environment.

What We’re Asking

We’re asking the City of San Diego to preserve funding for public restroom access across the City of San Diego including all services at the Neil Good Day Center
- Restore all porta-potties and handwashing stations in Downtown San Diego and especially in the East Village
- Redirect funding from reactive cleaning activities like bleaching streets and sidewalks to preventative interventions like restrooms, handwashing facilities, and trash cans

We’re asking the County of San Diego to create and fund a dedicated public-restroom access program in its budget to bolster hygiene access not just in County-run facilities and unincorporated areas, but also to support municipalities across the County by “leading by example” on this issue.

Submit a public e-comment to City of San Diego
Submit a public e-comment to County of San Diego
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Visit your local parks, libraries, and recreation centers and see the restrooms

Sample Talking Points

Public restrooms make it possible for families to enjoy San Diego’s beautiful parks and beaches without having to hurry home; for public transit riders and delivery drivers to meet their basic bodily needs without having to buy something just to get through their commute or work shift; and for tourists and visitors to comfortably enjoy all that San Diego has to offer. Please preserve public restroom funding so that San Diego can remain America’s Finest City.
Many of our public restrooms in San Diego can be found in our recreation centers and libraries. These spaces support positive youth and adult development and are essential to public safety.
Preventative public health measures like toilets and handwashing facilities are less costly and more effective than reactive band-aid measures like bleaching our downtown streets. We urge our City leaders to remember that we’ve already learned this lesson the hard way. We have an opportunity here to make better decisions and learn from our past mistakes. Make the responsible choice and use our taxpayer dollars wisely – please keep our public restrooms open.
From research done by our Project for Sanitation Justice team, we know that public restroom access in San Diego has already decreased since 2022, and the proposed cuts will make things much worse – especially for people with no other options. Public restroom access is a basic human right that all San Diegans deserve. If we care about the health, dignity, and wellbeing of all San Diegans, then we need to find a way to keep our public restrooms open and maintained.
It’s disgusting and unnecessary to see human waste on our city streets. Free, safe, and clean public restrooms are essential for public health as well as for basic human dignity and mobility. We should be funding public restroom infrastructure more, not less.