Mayor Todd Gloria’s proposed budget would close dozens of public restrooms in some of San Diego’s most heavily trafficked and popular tourist destinations.
San Diego is already infamous for its lack of toilets. If adopted, these cuts would mark the most dramatic rollback of public restrooms since Gloria vowed to expand access in 2021.
At least 38 public restrooms in Downtown, Balboa Park, Mission Bay and local beaches would be closed under the current plan, according to an Independent Budget Analyst report. These areas, which are heavily trafficked by tourists and locals alike, currently house 64 public restrooms – which means the number would be cut by more than half.
This does not account for additional reductions to restroom access that would result from $8 million in proposed cuts to libraries and recreation centers.
Proposed closures include:
- One restroom at the Neil Good Day Center, which serves unhoused San Diegans and is slated for closure
- Six portable restrooms in Downtown operated by the city’s Homeless Strategies and Solutions department
- Thirteen out of the 28 restrooms in Mission Bay Park
- Seven out of 14 portable restrooms on Fiesta Island
- Five beach restrooms
- Half of the stalls at the Children’s Pool restroom in La Jolla
- Six out of 17 permanent comfort stations in Balboa Park (including three on the park’s East Mesa, three in the Central Mesa, and one in the West Mesa)
The proposed closures total about $3 million in savings, $948,000 of which would come from closing the Neil Good Day Center.
The IBA report suggests the six portable restrooms in Downtown – which primarily serve unhoused people – should be funded by the county instead of the city. These were deployed in 2023 in response to public health concerns raised by the county’s Health and Human Services Agency.
The mayor proposed a similar slate of closures as part of last year’s budget deliberations, but councilmembers ultimately managed to get the bathrooms restored in the final budget.
In case you forgot: Back in 2021, Gloria promised to place a toilet within a five-minute walk of anywhere Downtown.
That promise came in the wake of a 2021 shigella outbreak, which is most commonly transmitted through contact with fecal matter. The same is true of Hepatitis A, which swept the city in 2017, sickening 582 people and killing 20. Both of these contagions spread primarily amongst Downtown’s unhoused population and have been linked to a lack of access to sanitation facilities.
This saga was detailed in a 2023 Grand Jury report titled, “Downtown Area Public Restrooms in the City of San Diego: Stop Kicking the Can Down the Road,” in which the jury calls upon the city to expand access to restrooms in Downtown and its surrounding areas.
That report marked the fifth time since 2000 that a Grand Jury has implored the city to expand public restroom access, citing public health concerns.
Nonetheless, the issue persists. A 2024 study by SDSU’s Project for Sanitation Justice found “very low availability” of sanitation facilities remained the norm across San Diego.
In a 2021 statement, Gloria emphasized the struggle to balance finite resources for supporting the unhoused population.
“The goal here isn’t to add as many permanent public bathrooms as possible,” the statement said. “The goal is to help get unsheltered residents off the streets and into safe, sanitary shelter and permanent housing.”
The mayor and City Council will pore over a revised version of the proposed budget in the coming weeks. A final budget must be approved by June 15.
The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment before publication.