Josh Williamson said his apartment got shut down a few years ago and he moved into a tent. Then city crews kicked him out of his camping spot and now he lives in an old camper from the 1960s.
Being homeless isn’t easy, he said. He derided a recent state law that criminalizes many elements of being homeless, bemoaned the cost of cigarettes, said shelters are often full, passerby are rude and, on top of it all, there’s little access to public restrooms in downtown Louisville.
Williamson said he’s seen people defecate in dumpsters, plastic bags or right on the street.
“It’s genuinely becoming a problem,” Williamson said.
Downtown data
Since 2021, the Louisville Downtown Partnership (LDP) has cleaned more than 3,380 instances of biohazardous waste in the city’s central business district and nearby blocks, according to data obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. This number includes needles, but mostly accounts for the growing issue of human and animal waste.
The 950 reports of human and animal waste in just the first six months of 2025 make up more than a quarter of all biohazard reports in the past four years, the data show. The waste piles and puddles in alleys and on sidewalks, against parking garages and in nooks along buildings. It’s in tree wells and patches of grass.
LDP ambassadors, a legion of more than 30 people adorned in orange collared shirts and a welcoming smile, are dispatched to dispose of the waste.
The city’s biohazard issue balloons as the number of people experiencing homelessness in the city increases, according to data from the Coalition for the Homeless, a local nonprofit advocacy group. The coalition identified more than 12,200 people who sought out homeless services in 2023, a 40% increase compared with 2020.
Louisville’s booming tourism industry also brings hundreds of thousands of people to the city — often to the downtown area — each year.
Despite the waste problems facing the city’s downtown, officials that represent the area aren’t keen to add publicly accessible restrooms anytime soon.
“We do not have any plans to do it,” said Rebecca Fleischaker, executive director of the Louisville Downtown Partnership.
Louisville Metro Council Member Ken Herndon, a District 4 Democrat who represents the downtown area, said adding public restrooms is expensive, it poses liability issues for property owners and opens a complex process to determine how many to install, where to put them, who will care for them and when the restrooms would be accessible.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “It’s not impossible, but it’s more complicated.”
Adding restrooms to the city’s downtown core is a no-brainer for local urban planners, homeless advocates, public health experts, business owners, philanthropists and religious leaders.
“It's a human need. It's something human beings need,” said Frederick Klotter, rector of the Cathedral of the Assumption on South 5th Street in downtown.
The church provides free lunch daily to homeless people and during that time will open the facility’s restroom. Once, Klotter said someone lit a fire in the restroom, causing significant damage. Church leaders considered shutting off access, but the need was too great, he said.
“We thought human dignity demanded that we provide that facility,” he said.
‘All sorts of options’
Williamson takes advantage of the church’s hospitality, often eating lunch in the shade in the alley behind the building. Restaurants rarely let him inside unless he’s a paying customer, he said. Without a restroom, he said he goes without other basic amenities.
“Not only do you have the inability to properly use the restroom in a safe, clean environment. You also have the inability to wash your hands afterwards [and] stay hydrated,” he said.
Beyond the church, people can use the restroom at the public library on York Street a few blocks south of the downtown core. Homeless support groups Vocal-KY, St. Johns Center and UP for Women and Children also offer restroom access. But after sunset, there are no publicly available restrooms in downtown Louisville.
Former Louisville Metro Council Member Jecorey Arthur, who preceded Herndon as the District 4 representative, sponsored a successful resolution last year that directed the city’s health department to conduct an inventory of public restrooms, hand washing stations and drinking water fountains.
“I did this because I saw other cities had public restroom plans and Louisville did not,” Arthur told KyCIR. “This helps people who are unhoused, but it also helps elderly people. It helps children, it helps tourists.”
The Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness Department is still working on the inventory and plans to present it in November to the Metro Council, according to Kathy Turner, senior director of strategic and integrated communications at the health department.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg was noncommittal when asked earlier this month if he would support adding more publicly accessible restrooms in downtown Louisville.
“We’re looking at all sorts of options,” he said.
In November 2023, Greenberg lauded the opening of a privately funded dog park in downtown Louisville, saying it adds to the experience of living and working in the area.
“As we continue to invest in and grow our downtown green spaces, we want to have something for all parties involved, including our beloved four-legged friends," he said.
Fleischaker, with the LDP, said she thinks most of the biohazardous waste found in the downtown area is from animals — dogs, namely. But she doesn’t know for sure. They don't test the waste.
She said LDP will start a plan to encourage and educate pet owners about proper disposal of waste.
Public health, human dignity
The area surrounding the new Trager Microforest is the source of several biohazardous waste cleanups in the past few years, LDP data show. The plot of open land known as Founders Square is next to the storied Louisville Gardens. Louisville Metro Government owns the block, but leases the land for $1 a year to the University of Louisville's Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, which is renovating a headquarters across the street.
Theodore R. Smith is the director of the Center for Healthy Air, Water and Soil at the Envirome Institute. He runs weekly tests on the wastewater in the city’s sewer system and said “it’s not lost on me” that biohazardous waste in the downtown area is an important issue.
“It’s one that we should, as a city, should own,” he said. “Because it's a public health matter at the very least, and it's a human dignity matter at the very most.”
And it’s an issue that will remain until city leaders provide necessary amenities for people in need, said David Smillie, the executive director at LOU Louisville Outreach for the Unsheltered.
“If there's no access to showers, hygiene and restroom facilities for people, you will end up with a hygiene issue, a biohazard issue on the streets,” he said. “Because homelessness isn't going away because you cut off the water supply.”
