Nobody wants to poop in a bag

Kamloops had a problem.

Specifically, it had a poop problem, one related to the difficulties that uninhabited people have access to toilets.

The issue has been a source of frustration for business owners who find fairies near their doors. But for people living rough, who can be turned away from public toilets or find them locked, there is often little choice – a scenario that leads to a loss of dignity, and sometimes conflict.

A local service agency that formed a committee to deal with the problem faced a series of challenges. The committee members had floated ideas to install and open more bathrooms or to extend the hours for public toilets. But each idea came with practical and logistical barriers and solving them could take years, leaving people to fend for themselves in the meantime.

Then Michael MacDonald, a 64-year-old man who lives in a North Kamloops shelter and was invited to join the toilet commission, thought of a more immediately achievable approach.

When someone made a comment about handing out poop stacks as a joke, MacDonald began to think seriously about the idea.

MacDonald – like many who live without a permanent home – is resourceful and knows what it’s like to be “three steps below hope”. For him, the answer to the challenge is to help people without homes to keep their dignity.

“When you’re homeless, you still have an idea of ​​what dignity is,” he said. Life without a home can erode that sense of dignity, he said. MacDonald wondered how to make a small thing respectable.

“I started thinking, well, how can we dignify the use of a poop bag?”

A search for achievable solutions

Over the years, MacDonald lived out of several vehicles until his last car, a Saturn Vue, was towed, leaving him and his dog Norman sleeping on the street behind the office of a local non-profit. An employee of the non-profit organization then helped him secure a bed in a shelter.

MacDonald said people need to understand the situations that bring someone to their knees. Without enough resources to sustain oneself on a daily basis, one is drawn into a shelter. MacDonald sees homelessness as a symptom of a host of other problems affecting society, and the result of barriers that prevent people from rebuilding their lives.

But the scale of the systemic challenges can prompt discussions about the fallout and help community members, he said.

“Unhoused is a category of people that we live with, at least for my lifetime, and probably forever,” he told The Tyee.

“We can’t deal with drug abuse among the people who are housed – addiction, and family violence, and all the things that come from that.”

Instead, MacDonald turned his focus to a simpler question: “How are we going to serve the people who are not housed?”

The problem and the plan

The “poop problem,” as MacDonald put it, had multifaceted consequences for Kamloops residents, both housed and not.

For people living rough and burdened with countless hardships, the need for a bathroom or menstrual products can lead to conflict when someone is told they cannot use the bathroom or when someone is driven to steal supplies such as tampons or pads.

“These situations tend to escalate beyond their meaning,” MacDonald said.

He hopes addressing the problem could help alleviate the frustration among those who find fairies on their properties while dispersing them through a process that brings community groups together.

MacDonald’s washroom kit idea was almost too simple for some. Some have suggested that the focus should be on finding a better long-term solution.

But MacDonald said the time and energy devoted to exploring expensive and “grandiose solutions” stalls and never materializes.

“The first response to this kit was ‘Well, let’s do a survey,'” he recalled. “I’d rather dig for the money than do a survey because what a waste of time.”

The bags are not a long-term solution. But they were attainable.

“Do you want to poop in a dog bag? No. Survey says 100 percent of people do not want to poop in a dog bag,” he said, referring to the game show Family Feud.

A particular band-aid solution

To fashion the kits, MacDonald used willow saplings to weave a loop, a light, durable, organic frame that can open a bag. He likes how the hand weaving process allows others to be involved in creating materials for the kit.

The loops are attached with carrying cases – repurposed expired naloxone kits. Various local groups and residents came together to paint the falls in colorful patterns.

MacDonald said the designs ensure the repurposed kits are not confused with naloxone while also adding value. If someone likes the look of their case, he said, they’re more likely to care about it. Bags, gloves and wipes are all provided by a local business.

Stickers with the project name – Item Rebranded – were printed by a Kamloops print company and affixed to the kits, giving users a way to provide feedback.

So far, 120 dignity kits have been assembled, with supplies for hundreds more collected.

The project inspired the creation of menstrual kits built with a different type of repurposed container. A hundred were created, and MacDonald gathered supplies for hundreds more.

Outreach workers picked up the kits for distribution at the end of August as part of a nonprofit-supported pilot project and will help people stock up kits with supplies.

Lana Fine, a committee member and social justice advocate who works at the Kamloops non-profit art studio Same Sky Collective, handed out the brightly colored kits to people who stop by the studio. She said the kits provide a timely response, guided by those with live and lived experience.

“Michael’s is an immediate band-aid solution to the underlying issue of the infrastructure not being built,” she said. Even as the kits are distributed, she said, the washroom committee continues to explore other solutions.

The committee will also distribute a questionnaire to kit users to further improve the items and the distribution process.

Glenn Hilke, a local social advocate, called the project a “gesture of compassion” rooted in MacDonald’s lived experience.

“He feels like he can translate that into something practical that adds some dignity — however small it may be to some people who don’t use the kits, or great to people who do,” Hilke told The Tyee. “It’s just a clear gesture of compassion when you see that the situation is a bit stuck for now.”

Hilke, who serves on the same committee as MacDonald, biked across Kamloops neighborhoods to document washroom access — or the lack thereof.

He said the group tossed around several ideas before being presented with the basic approach they could implement.

He said MacDonald’s approach to assembling the kits, which involved several members of the local business community, helped people feel they were contributing to a practical, if temporary, step.

“There’s no shortage of stigma to go around — who’s to blame for the situation, whether people owe it to the homeless, the city government, the province, whatever it might be,” Hilke said. “Here is a positive gesture of recognition of a problem, and why don’t we try this.”

It will take major government action to address the “web of issues” surrounding public toilet access, Hilke said. But the project fills a gap in the meantime.

“It simply says there are steps to solutions, as opposed to waiting for the big big solution that will fix the situation forever. You have to do something in the meantime.”

For his part, MacDonald said that he hopes that users will appreciate the practicality of the kits, their availability for use at any time and the creativity that is decorated in each case.

“The idea of ​​anything being made by hand must resonate with even the darkest of our uninhabited population,” he said.

So far, MacDonald said, his presentations about the kits have been well received, and uptake for the menstrual kit in particular is “through the roof.”

He said the kits are a way to “do something about something we can do something about,” instead of getting caught up in the complex tangle of larger, systemic issues that lead to poverty, mental health and substance use challenges.

“We don’t have a fix for it,” MacDonald said. “But we can certainly have compassion.”