July 15, 2019 – A new report from the Pacific Institute finds that in 2015, 208,000 Californians lacked toilets, while 211,000 lacked hot and cold running water. Slightly more than half the individuals without toilets and hot and cold running water were homeless, but nearly half resided in homes with incomplete plumbing.
The report finds that incomplete plumbing was a problem throughout the state in both urban and rural areas. In one of the wealthiest counties in the state, San Francisco, one in forty households did not have a private toilet, in addition to the 7,500 homeless persons in the county. The results show how California’s housing crisis is pushing people into substandard housing and onto the streets, where they cannot meet their basic needs for water and sanitation.
“California’s Human Right to Water law states that every human being has the right to water and sanitation,” says report author Dr. Laura Feinstein. “But 200,000 of California’s low-income residents can’t even afford to live in homes with a private toilet and hot and cold running water. It shows that California’s housing crisis is also a public health crisis.”
The report recommends greater investments in water and sanitation and in affordable housing, as well as expanding services for people experiencing homelessness. Local governments have funding to improve stormwater quality that could be used to invest in public restrooms.
Link to full report: https://pacinst.org/publication/plumbing-depths/