Police Say Toilets for Homeless a Haven for Crime

Portable toilets set up at the urging of City Hall to serve the homeless in Centre City East area have actually become miniature dope houses and have served only to increase the amount of illegal drug and sex-for-pay activity in the area, according to San Diego police.

Police were once able to easily spot illegal activity on street corners in the area south and east of downtown, but many of those crimes have now gone behind the closed doors of the portable toilets.

And, although, some neighborhood merchants had requested the outhouses to keep the homeless from urinating in public, their installation has backfired, police say.

“They breed crime and trouble,” said Officer Jeffrey Steele, who has worked for three years on the walking patrols in the area and who has become increasingly frustrated with the illicit use of the portable toilets.

“They breed the bacteria of crime. They breed the bacteria of criminal behavior. And it makes it tougher for us to do our job,” he said.

Weren’t Available for Use by Homeless

Steele and his fellow officers said the toilets, placed at curb sides in the area, never really were available for use by the homeless. Instead, the upright structures quickly became havens for drug dealers by day and for transvestites who ply their trade in the evening, they said.

Police said that they have twice found drug addicts who overdosed and passed out inside the structures, and that other addicts and street denizens have been stabbed, robbed and beaten.

Police said several of the mini-toilets have been burned down by street people trying to keep warm and by drug users who have fumbled with matches while trying to light crack cigarettes inside the dimly lit, plastic latrines.

“We came to work one morning and one of the toilets was a big blue blob,” Steele said.

But his boss, Sgt. Larry Bender, and City Hall officials defend the original idea of providing public bathrooms for the homeless. The problem is, they said, many of the street people are afraid to use the latrines, out of fear of the drug dealers.

“It was a good idea on paper,” Bender said. “But, when the porta-toilets went up, the drug activity went right up around them.”

Officer Bret Righthouse said the drug dealers and prostitutes quickly realized that the latrines can be a safe hiding place from police, and that criminals quickly gravitated toward them. “The toilets are like light bulbs for moths,” he said.

Daro Quiring, a city official who oversees maintenance of the area, acknowledged that the seven portable toilets are used for “drug deals, sexual encounters and muggings” in addition to their intended purpose.

“One guy was found dead in one with a needle in his arm,” Quiring said, and an elderly man reported that he was dragged into one and mugged about six months ago.

However, Quiring said, “the latrines are in fact used and used significantly. . . . They’re extremely difficult to keep clean.”

Response to Complaints

The portables were installed about three years ago in response to complaints from area business owners that transients were urinating and defecating on their property, and a request by the Regional Task Force for the Homeless, Quiring said.

But the latrines, rented and maintained by the city at a cost of $400 a month each, “are not popular with business people. . . . I guess you could call them an attractive nuisance.”

However, four will be removed when the Centre City Development Corp. and the city install downtown’s second permanent toilet at 11th and J streets, Quiring said. Like the public bathrooms at 3rd Avenue and C Street next to City Hall, those toilets will have an attendant.

Two city surveys show that an average of 350 people--from the homeless to tourists to downtown workers--use the restrooms at 3rd and C every day, Quiring said.

The CCDC will pay $90,000 to build the permanent restrooms, and the city will spend about $50,000 annually to maintain them. The larger restrooms at 3rd and C, which have a small flower garden on top, were built at a cost of $205,000, Quiring said.

Louise Miesfelt, a spokeswoman for the nearby Gaslamp Quarter Council, said her organization wants the portable latrines removed if the drug and other illegal activities continue.

“It’s obviously something we don’t want to happen in the area,” she said. “If the Police Department requested their removal, our board of directors would vote on whether or not to remove them.”

A Constant Nuisance

Cindy Smith, a member of the Many Hands arts and crafts gallery in the area, said the latrines have become a constant nuisance to merchants and customers.

“We have one about a block away,” she said. “There’s been some instances around it, and we sort of stay away from it. One time I witnessed some rather large men trying to get something away from this little white-haired man. They knocked him to the ground.

“So why don’t the police go in there and take care of it? Let’s clean it up.”

But Sgt. Bender said the area has become so drug-ridden--about 50 narcotics-related arrests are made each day--that, even if the latrines are removed, the drug dealing and sexual encounters will continue.