The City of Kamloops may soon address its No. 1 and No. 2 problems — a dearth of access to public washrooms in key areas.

A recent report to city council highlighted the work of the city’s Clean Team, which is charged with keeping the city’s most active corridors nice and tidy. Oftentimes that includes a bit of dirty work.

In addition to the more than 13,000 kilograms of garbage the team removed from city streets in 2025, it also cleaned up feces a grand total of 541 times.

That last statistic caught the ear of Coun. Bill Sarai, who said it was a matter of people’s dignities “on both sides” over someone relieving themselves on city streets.

“I look at both sides of that picture, where a person who had to come to a place where they had no other choice,” he said. “Not only for the people who are struggling, but also for our Clean Team.”

Sarai said access to a place to do that kind of business has long been needed in the city and that through his seven years on council, the city has struggled to implement a solution, with concerns over cost, security and maintenance preventing movement on the matter.

Advocate Glenn Hilke is part of a working group looking to bring relief to those looking for a spot to go. He said the narrative is that the unhoused population within the city is the reason why we can’t seem to figure this out.

“They’re the ones being blamed for vandalism in particular. But that’s something that has happened historically in washrooms. People like to bring a Sharpie and write their philosophy on the walls,” he said.

Hilke said he’s not convinced that is enough of a reason to maintain the status quo. But even still, he suggested some “low-hanging fruit” the city could first address before dishing out taxpayer dollars for new loos.

As a 73-year-old, Hilke said even in good health, he often finds himself needing to go when out and about. To help inform the working group, he recently completed a bicycle tour of the city’s public washrooms and found several potential improvements the city could make, short of adding more public washroom locations.

He pointed to facilities at Pioneer Park, which are closed seasonally through the winter. With long stretches of mild temperatures this year, however, Hilke asked why they couldn’t be open depending on the forecast, rather than potentially being closed for up to seven months annually.

He also wondered why the washrooms in Overlander Park are heated and remain open while others are not.

In Riverside Park, Hilke found that despite clear instructions on the door to simply push a button for access, he needed to find the park’s security guard to open the accessible washroom for him.

A conversation with the guard revealed that although opening the washroom was part of the job, so was securing the rest of the park, meaning access wasn’t always available.

Pointing to success seen elsewhere, Hilke suggested the city look into hiring washroom attendants to keep an eye on the facilities and ensure they could remain open year-round.

“I’m sure we can figure that out and have the right people there, trained on all sorts of levels,” he said.

Both Calgary and Edmonton have public washroom strategies that include attendants, while Vancouver is currently looking to install a number of Portland Loos, which are popular and robust toilets used in their eponymous city as well as elsewhere across North America.

Park People, a national organization dedicated to championing city parks in Canada, includes Edmonton as part of its case study on public washroom access in parks and based on that data, makes a number of recommendations.

Those recommendations include hiring washroom attendants to keep the spaces safe and clean, developing a city-wide strategy informed by demographics, and a creating a grant program for community organizations and businesses to fill gaps in the city’s washroom network.

Hilke, who formerly operated The Loop day space on Tranquille Road, also said solving the city’s dire need for day spaces would be a big help.

“There are no day spaces in Kamloops. That’s the big elephant in the room. If we had day spaces, plural, one downtown and one on the North Shore, those would be public washrooms specifically targeted for the unhoused community,” he said.

Council’s safety and security committee will soon receive a report on public washroom options, according to Ken Uzeloc, the city’s fire chief and protective services director. It is expected sometime in March.