Cleveland Renovating Fire Stations To Include Women's Bathrooms, Beds

Cleveland is moving forward with a plan to renovate fire stations to make them more accommodating for female firefighters.

The plan, which includes adding women’s restrooms and sleeping areas, comes after a November Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling that the Cleveland Division of Fire was discriminatory against women and people of color in its hiring practices. One fire station has already been updated as a pilot.

The next phase of the plan would be implemented this year and cost about $85,000 to make changes at six fire stations, Carter Edman, from the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects, told city council Tuesday.

The third round of changes would require design work and permitted construction, and come with a significantly higher cost: $745,000 in the next bond request, Edman said.

Antoine Crews, president of the Vanguards of Cleveland, a group representing minority fire fighters, said the city has recently opened up communication to address complaints but there’s still much work to be done.

“When it comes to improvement, we are improving. Under the new safety director, we are working together a lot better than how it was going before. So I would say there is progress, but no real change as of now,” Crews said.

There is currently just one woman working in the department, Crews said, but about a dozen more are in the current training class.

Ward 2 Councilman Kevin Bishop said the number of female current or cadet firefighters is not as much a factor in the update process as the future of the force.

“From an equity standpoint, I think we need to have these facilities ready and equipped for men and women,” Bishop said Tuesday.

But the proposal did face questions from some city council members who were unsure of the need to update facilities when so few women work in the division. Councilman Brian Kazy asked whether the money would be better spent on other needs, such as replacing station roofs.

“Are we putting the cart before the horse here by doing as many as we’re doing when we know currently we don’t have many female firefighters?” Kazy asked.

Damaged roofs and other capital improvement plans are address in a separate funding request, said Director of Finance Sharon Dumas, while the money in question would allow Cleveland to better outfit all of the fire stations, so women would not be limited in their assignment options.

“Part of the issues in the past was that we had no accommodations for women,” Dumas said. “Now as we renovate stations, whether that’s fire stations or any other renovations throughout the city, we try to make sure that we accommodate all of the potential users.”

But that work needs to be completed soon, say Crews and the Vanguards, to ensure new female recruits have proper accommodations.

“There is no real way of saying what station they would be sent to, it’s whatever detail opened up. So they can get sent to any random station at any random time,” Crews told ideastream. “It’s definitely important right now to start getting these bathrooms complete.”

Crews said the city has a new physical exam that levels the playing field for female candidates, but added there’s no plan yet to improve department diversity for the long term.

“As we look at it, each hire that comes onto the department will be with us for the next 30 years,” he said. “So if we want to make change, we need to plan now.”