The Pit Stop program was designed to provide clean and safe public toilets, sinks, used needle receptacles and dog waste stations in areas impacted by homeless individuals. The program utilizes portable toilets, which are trucked to and from high traffic sites daily after overnight servicing, and/or semi-permanent self-cleaning toilet stations. Services can also be designed for monitoring and maintaining permanent public toilets. Pit Stop restroom units are staffed by paid monitors who ensure that the toilets are well maintained and used for their intended purpose. Not only do the people who need a bathroom benefit, but so do the city residents, business owners, and neighborhoods.
What makes this program uniquely beneficial?
The initiative incorporates a collaborative innovative idea working with long term offenders with whom both Mr. Dwayne Cooks and Mr. DeJuan Lewis work extensively with , exiting prisons after long periods of incarceration and rehabilitation. By collaborating with the San Francisco Department of Public Works on workforce development projects, Mr. Cooks and Mr. Lewis saw attended restrooms as a vehicle to help municipalities and their populations on a number of fronts.
The program provides an opportunity for men and women who are qualified to work, but facing barriers to employment, to earn a living wage and receive training in data collection and customer service, and to be surrounded by social services and supervision. Selecting, training, motivating, managing and monitoring employees for the cities Pit Stops is a job that Mr. Cooks and Mr. Lewis excel at, based on many years of hands on experience working for the Division of Parole Operations and Parole Transitional Re-entry programming.
The Pit Stop program was also partly designed to provide the homeless with the dignity of a restroom, a small but important step to alleviate the suffering of those who live on the street. What evolved was also a means for the long-term offender monitors to reach out to the homeless to develop positive relationships to benefit the neighborhood, becoming advocates of change, and giving back to the communities they once took from. For example, our monitors are being trained to help connect the homeless to services, and to help motivate those with a substance use disorder or a mental health problem to seek treatment. They serve as positive role models to demonstrate care for the streets. This essentially allows our population we hire to apply the many years of rehabilitative training they have received, while actively participating in the advocacy for change, restorative justice, and the reduction of recidivism.