Keene's Costly Commode: City Weighs $440K High-Tech Public Potty

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

Keene officials are weighing whether to spend $442,000 on a high-tech public bathroom for the city’s homeless population, a proposal critics say could send taxpayer dollars straight down the drain.

And while the college town fashions itself as a deep-blue enclave with a West Coast vibe, city officials may want to check the record on similar facilities in places like San Francisco and Seattle.

At a recent committee meeting, City Councilor Michele Chalice said homeless people who congregate in Keene’s downtown need a public bathroom.

“I know this is a difficult investment,” Chalice said, according to the Keene Sentinel. “But I believe it’s important for a respectful community to respect its citizens and allow for places for them to go to the bathroom without fear or shame.”

Others say nearly half a million dollars is a pretty high price to give the homeless a place to potty.

“Absurd!” said former Cheshire County GOP Chair Kate Day.

“You don’t encourage more responsibility by subsidizing stupidity,” Day said in a statement to NHJournal. “Who spends almost $500,000 on homeless potties? For crying out loud, if you provide a bathroom, can’t they at least work to keep it clean?”

The current proposal puts the high-cost commode near the bike path on Gilbo Avenue. The model eyed by the city includes a self-timing cleaning system that locks itself after every 10th user for a 30-second deep clean. That system reportedly washes away debris like used drug needles into a secure trough.

Former Mayor George Hansel raised questions about the practical aspects of the proposal.

“I get what they’re trying to do, and I don’t think it’s going to work,” Hansel told NHJournal.

Hansel said the high-tech potty will still have the same low-budget problems other public bathrooms in the city face. The bathrooms in Keene’s City Hall are open to the public during business hours.

“We have public bathrooms, and the problem always becomes making sure they’re safe and clean,” Hansel said. “It’s not something you can throw more money at and solve all the problems.”

Self-cleaning public bathroom programs targeted at the homeless population have a mixed track record at best.

San Francisco’s self-cleaning public bathrooms quickly became known as “20-minute hotels,” where people could shoot up drugs or engage in prostitution. Instead of ditching the commodes, San Francisco now employs people to act as public bathroom attendants, so the autonomous self-cleaning bathrooms are also self-defeating — and expensive. The 2025 budget to operate them was $14 million.

Seattle spent $5 million on five German-engineered self-cleaning bathrooms in 2004, only to run into the same problems of rampant drug use and prostitution lurking in the johns. The bathroom crimes got so bad that Seattle sold all of the units in 2008 on eBay, getting a little more than $12,000 from the buyer.

The city is including the bathroom in the 2028 Capital Improvement Plan, which is the subject of a public hearing on Thursday, March 19.

Ward One Councilor Jacob Favolise told NHJournal that the proposed timeline for the project puts design and installation in 2027 or 2028, so there’s plenty of time for discussion and debate. And, he acknowledged, he has some concerns.

“Whether you think the public bathroom itself is a good or bad idea, $442,000 is a lot of money. Given that price tag, given the challenges with the last bathroom like this in Downtown Keene, and given the number of competing priorities we are juggling, I can understand why this is raising questions for people—this councilor included.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.