Thursday, October 25, 2012

Shower to the People

Rebecca Koffman reports on a cool, neat idea...that generates some short-term mess.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/10/mobile_shower_service_for_home.html

Anybody who's ever taken a road trip has to appreciate the idea of a public shower service. It doesn't have to cater specifically to homeless people; it doesn't (in most cases) have to encroach on existing businesses; and, although a waiting area is necessary, the waiting area doesn't have to be messy.

In fact, in towns like Wytheville, Virginia, for-profit shower services are a lucrative business. The primary clients are long-distance travellers--truck drivers, and sometimes Greyhound passengers. The price of a shower is low...but the showers are in permanent buildings, with waiting areas that house fast-food, convenience store, souvenir items, newsstands, and video games, and since most of the clients have money to spend they end up paying for these things as well as showers.

Why don't more cities offer public "bath houses," with fees for those who can pay and vouchers supplied by charity for those who can't? Seems some city planners have, in the past, worried about public "bath houses" being used for immoral purposes. However, in Wytheville a little management by people who are careful to admit only one person at a time to a shower seems to eliminate that problem. There is probably no way to keep penniless and desperate people from prowling around truck parking areas and soliciting truck drivers, but it's not at all difficult, in a well-planned building, to watch that these people don't sneak into showers.

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