CONTACT:

Alison Wilkey, Coalition for the Homeless press@cfthomeless.org   

Adolfo Abreu, VOCAL-NY, adolfo@vocal-ny.org 

Free to Pee Coalition Flushed with Excitement About the First Citywide Public Bathroom Strategy  

Report Details Areas for Bathroom Expansion, But Relief Is Still a Way to Go  

NEW YORK — Today, in response to Mayor Mamdani’s release of “A Right to Go: New York’s Citywide Public Bathroom Strategy,” the Free to Pee Coalition led by VOCAL-NY and Coalition for the Homeless released the following statement: 

“A Right to Go is a good first wipe toward building out a public bathroom network that serves all New Yorkers, especially the most vulnerable among us.  

The report highlights several access issues for homeless New Yorkers with the current inventory of bathrooms. For example, 80.7 percent of existing public bathrooms are in parks and libraries and thus have limited hours of operation. While the report suggests areas where the City can improve infrastructure planning to include bathrooms and identifies the potential for public-private partnerships to more than the current trickle, the City must still make concrete commitments and a hard push to finish its business and achieve the target of 2,120 bathrooms. 

To ensure that future public bathroom production and programs better meet the needs of unhoused and disabled New Yorkers, the City must maintain a robust dialogue that engages harm reduction programs, homeless service providers, and grassroots organizations. We thank Councilmember Sandy Nurse for her leadership in bathroom access and look forward to working with the City Council to secure the budget and policy changes necessary to achieve our porcelain dreams. Over the coming year, we are eager to work more with the Mamdani administration as they develop the action plan to bring the strategies contained in this report to a head.” 

Background:  

The Mamdani administration released the first-ever strategic plan for doubling the number of public bathrooms by 2035, as required by Local Law 58 of 2025 – passed by the City Council last year. The law creates a permanent, long-term planning process for a citywide bathroom network that requires:  

• A citywide strategic plan to reach a target of 2,120 public bathrooms, to be updated every 4 years  

• the City to post a comprehensive, easy-to-use online map of all publicly available bathrooms, along with design recommendations for modular bathroom facilities. 

There has not been a considerable increase in public bathrooms since the 1970s, when many were closed due to budget cuts and mounting stigma against homeless New Yorkers. Currently, there is only 1 public restroom per 9,035 New Yorkers. Additional critical data includes: 

• Many public restrooms are not accessible to those with disabilities. 11% of the City’s population lives in the five boroughs with disabilities – that’s 945,456 people. 

• In Fiscal Year 2025, the New York City Police Department issued 10,003 criminal and civil summonses for urination in public, establishing a record high.  

In the 1990s, homeless New Yorkers sued New York City and the MTA for forcing them to endure ongoing embarrassment, harassment, humiliation, and hazardous conditions that stemmed from a lack of access to public bathrooms. Access to restrooms is a public health issue for everyone.  

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