Portable hygiene station vendors picked up a major client just as events came to a screeching halt, when the pandemic emerged a little over a year ago. The city with the largest unhoused population in the country needed to roll out hundreds of portable hand-washing stations and toilets to dozens of encampments across the city. Not only that, they needed the units to be serviced at least once a day, indefinitely.
The job paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each month and was ultimately split between a few vendors. United Site Services (USS), the nation’s leader in portable toilet rentals, delivered more than 200 hand-washing stations and the majority of the nearly 200 porta-potties. Andy Gump, a local family-owned business based in Santa Clarita, supplied around 50 hand-washing stations. Later National Construction and a few other suppliers delivered less than 15 units each, as nationwide demand for hand-washing stations reportedly grew as a result of the pandemic. None of the vendors agreed to comment on this series of stories.
The pandemic “accelerated the growth of the hand washing station industry,” according to an exclusive January report from Reuters, announcing that Beverly Hills based buyout firm, Platinum Equity, put USS on the market for roughly $4 billion (about three times what they reportedly paid for the company four years ago). Overall, the industry is expected to grow by more than half a billion dollars in the next six years, according to market research cited by Reuters.
The demand for portable sinks and bathrooms was a lifeline for vendors who might not have survived the pandemic otherwise. The last recession nearly put Andy Gump out of business. “The single most difficult part of the recession is having to lay people off.” The late Barry Gump told reporter Angela Melero in 2015 while reflecting on the 2008 recession. The company has been in business for more than 60 years. “We pride ourselves in having quality people. When you have to call them in and tell them that there’s not enough work for them to continue, you feel like you’ve failed and yet it’s really out of your hands.”
Last year, Andy Gump Inc., received more than $2.5 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to help keep their nearly 200 employees on staff, pay for healthcare and rent during the pandemic.