Amoowigamig washroom petition: Winnipeg Free Press and you

Thank you to everyone who has signed this petition! Please do share it with others to keep up the momentum.

At almost 100 signatures right now, we have already attracted the attention of journalist Emma Honeybun, who will be visiting the washroom today and writing a story for the Winnipeg Free Press mentioning this petition.

The Free Press has not printed the letter to the editor that I wrote several days ago, though. Perhaps if they receive letters from other people on this topic, they'll print one. This is another way to get the word out. You can email letters to the editor to letters@freepress.mb.ca 

Include your home address and phone number, and mention an article you are responding to. The original article that sparked this petition was "Hours to be cut at Main Street washroom despite success" (February 23, page B-1), or you could mention any more recent article about city spending, the homelessness crisis, etc.

Here's what I wrote, evidently not a good model since they didn't print it

: - )

How much is a human life worth?

Staff at the downtown public washroom, Amoowigamig, have saved six lives from opioid poisoning. They have provided a better and healthier life for eight people by finding them housing. They have been a source of needed sanitary supplies for hundreds more. 

Without washroom facilities, human beings like you or me are reduced to relieving themselves on city streets, with no place to wash up, day after day. It is degrading and horribly unhealthy. So just the existence of this safe permanent public washroom is a gift to the health and dignity of many hundreds of people living with homelessness in our downtown.

Surely the lives, health, and dignity of so many people are worth at least the $650,000 needed to keep the facility open day and night! How can it be that the city, with an annual budget in the hundreds of millions, cannot find this money? How can any of us who live in homes with washrooms, where we can brush our teeth, relieve ourselves, wash our hands, bathe, without a second thought, stand by as the already limited hours of this life-saving facility are cut further?

The city must fully fund Amoowigamig as a 24/7 staff-supported resource for the dignity of human beings and the health of the downtown community. Not to do so would be shameful for all of us.