No One Wants to Poop in a Bag

Kamloops had a problem.

Specifically, it had a poop problem, one linked to the difficulties unhoused people have accessing washrooms.

The topic has been a source of frustration for business owners finding feces near their doorsteps. But for people living rough, who can be turned away from public washrooms or find them locked, there’s often little choice — a scenario that leads to a loss of dignity, and occasionally conflict.

A local service agency that had struck a committee to deal with the problem had hit a series of challenges. Committee members had floated ideas to install and open more bathrooms or extend hours for public toilets. But each idea came with practical and logistical barriers and resolving them could take years, leaving people to make do in the meantime.

Then Michael MacDonald, a 64-year-old man who lives in a North Kamloops shelter and who had been invited to participate in the washroom committee, started thinking about a more immediately achievable approach.

When someone made a comment about distributing poop bags in jest, MacDonald started thinking 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 involved helping people without homes maintain their dignity.

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

“I started to think, well, how can we make using a poop bag dignified?”

A search for achievable solutions

Over the years, MacDonald had lived out of several vehicles until his last car, a Saturn Vue, was towed, leaving him and his dog Norman to sleep on the street behind the office of a local non-profit. A staffer at the non-profit subsequently helped him secure a bed at a shelter.

MacDonald said people must understand the situations that can bring someone to their knees. Without enough resources to sustain oneself daily, one gets pulled into an undertow. MacDonald sees homelessness as a symptom of a host of other difficulties that beset society, and the result of barriers that prevent people from rebuilding their lives.

But the scale of the systemic challenges can bog down discussions about how to address the fallout and help community members, he said.

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

“We can’t handle the drug abuse among people that are housed — addiction, and family violence, and all of those things that come out of that.”

Instead, MacDonald turned his focus on a simpler question: “How are we going to serve the people that are unhoused?”

The problem and the plan

The “poop problem,” as MacDonald put it, had multi-faceted consequences for Kamloops residents, both housed and unhoused.

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

“Those situations tend to escalate beyond their significance,” MacDonald said.

He hopes that addressing the problem could help alleviate frustration among those who find feces on their properties, while being distributed through a process that brings community groups together.

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

MacDonald, though, said time and energy have been dedicated to exploring expensive and “grandiose solutions” that get hung up and never materialize.

“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 aren’t a long-term solution. But they were achievable.

“Would you like to poop in a dog bag? No. Survey says 100 per cent of the people do not want to poop in a dog bag,” he said, referencing the game show Family Feud.

An admittedly band-aid solution

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

The loops are attached to carrying cases — repurposed expired naloxone kits. Several local groups and residents have come together to help paint the cases in colourful patterns.

MacDonald said the designs ensure the repurposed kits won’t be mistaken for naloxone, while also adding value. If someone likes the look of their case, he said, they are more likely to take care of it. Bags, gloves and wipes are all supplied 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 of providing feedback.

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

The project inspired the creation of menstruation kits that have been built using another type of repurposed container. One hundred have been created, and MacDonald has collected supplies for hundreds more.

Outreach workers picked up the kits for distribution in late August as part of a non-profit-backed pilot project and will help restock people’s kits with supplies.

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

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

The committee will also be distributing a questionnaire for 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 transfer that into something practical that adds some dignity — however small it may be to some people that are not using the kits, or great for people that are using them,” Hilke told The Tyee. “It's just a clear gesture of compassion when you see that the situation is kind of stuck for the moment.”

Hilke, who serves on the same committee as MacDonald, has cycled across Kamloops neighbourhoods documenting washroom access — or the lack thereof.

He said the group had kicked around several ideas before being presented with the grassroots approach they could actualize.

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

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

It will take larger actions from government to address the "network of issues" around public washroom access, Hilke said. But the project fills a gap in the interim.

"It's saying simply there are steps to solutions, as opposed to waiting for the big grand solution that's going to fix the situation forever. You've got to do something in the meantime."

For his part, MacDonald said he hopes users will appreciate the practicality of the kits, their availability to use at any time and the creativity that went into decorating each case.

“The idea of everything being hand done has to resonate with even the darkest of our unhoused population,” he said.

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

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

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