I’m honored to be among the inaugural class of recipients of a Flushy Award, Throne Labs’ new award celebrating excellence in public restroom access. Even more, I’m thrilled to have worked with advocates, the company, and the Council to make bathrooms accessible across our District.  

Bathrooms are essential to public health, disability access, community well-being, and equity. That’s why I’ve made access to public restrooms a policy priority for over a decade. Residents, tourists, parents, kids, people with medical conditions, unhoused neighbors – everybody’s gotta go and now they can more easily in nearly every ward in D.C.  

It took many years of pushing and fighting and ultimately identifying the right partner to get this program operating. From the passage of the Public Restroom Access Act in 2018, to finally securing funding in the FY24 budget for the pilot program, we have persisted in our fight to make sure every resident has access to this basic human need.   

It was a joy to join the “Loo Committee” – the original public restroom advocates, including Marcy Bernbaum – to celebrate the opening of the Throne in Columbia Heights in June 2024, complete with a toilet paper ribbon cutting. 

Our pilot program, which logged 145,000 uses and 56,000 unique users with zero safety incidents, has since grown. I’m so proud that we will expand to 11 locations in the upcoming fiscal year. The District will also hire a restrooms coordinator to manage this program, thanks to funding I found in the FY26 budget. 

Every delay and obstacle paved the way for a long overdue permanent public restrooms program here in D.C. The Throne locations – moveable, fully functional, clean restrooms – serve all of our residents and visitors, and I am proud to be a champion of this work.