There needs to be an outdoor drinking fountain at every single park / rec center at least. Thank you to a fellow Daytona Beach citizen for bringing this up. My fellow citizen was specifically referring to the houseless population, but truthfully, like so many other things such as public benches, water fountains are a basic bare-minimum essential for livability of a city.
One of my nearby parks has a three-level drinking fountain / water-bottle refill fountain. Tallest level for tall humans, mid level for shorter humans, and the bottom level for dogs and other furbabies.
Constant steady availability of drinking water fountains/waterbottle refill stations is a necessity to all of us.
BTW I noticed that the beautiful, newly reopened opened Dickerson Center doesn’t seem to have a water fountain outdoors. I will be bringing that up to the city, and I’m going around noticing where else we need outdoor water fountains.
And the intensifying heat only emphasizes the need.
The availability of water stations outdoors is a non-negotiable essential. It helps serve as a cooling system as well. Could save lives. Anybody, housed or unhoused, can be done in by the heat very quickly. This is just one example of how caring for our unhoused population is in the best interest of us all.
Another old-fashioned type of cooling facility is a public fountain. Nowadays in a lot of places the closest equivalent is what’s called a splash pad. But a splash pad is more of a children’s recreational facility, and people would probably look askance at adults trying to cool themselves there.
Actually people do look askance at the unhoused population trying to cool themselves there. However, we actually all need public fountains. Not only for cooling ourselves, but also as a “third place”; a public commons for reestablishing basic trust and human connection.