LOS ANGELES — There’s nothing like taking a walk in downtown Los Angeles for Claudia Oliveira, the area’s neighborhood council president and resident.

But the sights and smells of people using streets as an outdoor toilet nearly stops her in her tracks.

“They wash it, but this is like this because people don’t have a place to go,” Oliveira said. “This is the alternative.”

During her walk, Oliveira came across multiple nooks near building entrances that were soiled. She believes a lack of public restroom access to be the cause. More than 40,000 people in the city are homeless, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

About 20 years ago, the city made a deal with OutfrontDecaux that would ultimately bring in 14 mostly self-cleaning and automated public restrooms to the city in exchange for exclusive ad space on city property. The green restroom buildings provided free access with a push of a button and an attendant nearby to maintain the site.

“Before the toilets were brought in, it was just, even dirtier. But now we have more people,” Oliveira said. “So it did help because it was better than what it was before with nothing.”

Oliveira hopes more sites will eventually pop up. But the city has other plans. Lance Oishi is a contract administrator for the Bureau of Street Services, which operates under the city’s Department of Public Works.

Oishi explained that because of the contract ending in 2022, the automated tech used to create the sidewalk restrooms is proprietary and tied to the previous deal, which the city doesn’t plan to renew.

Since the automated restrooms were covered by the agency, Oishi also mentioned that the city wouldn’t know what the operating cost would be for an automated restroom, let alone find parts if sites have a malfunction. Currently, the city is looking at permanent replacements that are not automated and come with a price tag of about $3 million to install, operate and maintain.

“We will be taking one toilet offline and replace it with one of the replacement toilets,” Oishi said. “So, by the time Dec. 31 rolls around, we’ll have all 14 toilets replaced, and again there will be no disruption in service. So people will have access to the toilets beyond 2022.”

While the city brainstorms different permanent option, OutfrontDecaux sent the following statement about the ending contract: “Twenty years ago Los Angeles forged a successful partnership with OutfrontDecaux to provide clean safe public toilets funded by ad sales at no cost to taxpayers. The rise in homelessness makes this human service increasingly vital. As the world leader in this high quality street ready service, we stand ready to expand our service as long as the urgent need continues. Our high tech equipment has stood the test of time.”

As the contract ends, Oliveira hopes the community will only find more public access.

“All I know is that these are good, and I think that we need more,” she said. “And they can be of different kinds, as long as they are not the temporary, plastic Andy Gumps.”