Any decent city should have easy access to free drinking water, plenty of garbage bins, free toilets and cheap showers - not only for the poor, but for everyone. Even when being filthy rich, one does need to do the number one and number two from time to time, and it's not always convenient to combine it with a cup of coffee or a snack. (I do tend both to drink too much and eat too much, when what I really want is just electricity, toilet, drinking water, a place to sit or stand with my laptop and wireless network).

Some people do need to see the toilet more frequently than others. Personally I do tend to get problems if I drink too much coffee or tea, sometimes I start feeling the needs for a new visit only 15 minutes after last time I was peeing.

For a period, my son had some kind of health problem, he needed to pee very frequently, sometimes as often as every 15th minute. Luckily it's relatively easy for a 5yr old boy to just pee almost wherever, but taking the metro was often a challenge ... and I do remember being at the central station, I was so angry when I saw they had increased the price for a toilet visit, from 10 NOK to 20 NOK. The toilets are for free on the trains, on the central station it is frequently possible to jump onboard a train, see the toilet quickly, and jump off again before the train moves.

I read in the newspaper about one guy that had severe chronic stomach problems, it was such a handicap for him, his whole life was ruined due to his frequent needs to see the toilet. He basically had no choice other than to stay at home. Last time he tried doing something with his kids he ended up shitting on himself while standing in a toilet queue :-(

Anyway, I do understand that it's not easy to run free toilets. Toilets do need cleaning and maintenance. There are differences between people that are "just" homeless and real bums - unfortunately it seems like some people deliberately do what they can to sabotage. I think we had an experiment with free toilets in Oslo, and unfortunately it did not work out :-(

Cultures are different, in parts of China all toilets are public, and it does work out relatively well. That is, as long as the toilets are without seats - once they install toilets with seats there are plenty of people that rather want to stand on the ring while doing their stuff instead of sitting on it :-(