Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliNative
Sometimes feces are on the often filthy sidewalks and alleys of LA, SF & SD and I don't think they're all canine. Homeless are less at fault than the muni authorities that don't provide adequate restrooms for people to relieve themselves and places to wash. In San Diego there was a hepatitis outbreak last year because of this. Twenty years ago who would of thought we would turn into Calcutta? Richest country in the world? Or just most callous? For a few billion $, we could probably solve this problem, about 0.01% of our military spending. But we don't.
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I smiled--ironically--to myself the other day as I walked up one street and passed what appeared to be a tourist couple and right where we passed there was a sh*t pile at the base of a tree. It could have been from a large dog but I suspect otherwise . . . but, my guess was the tourists didn't even think about the alternative.
But I despair about how the city could really solve this problem. It has already tried public bathrooms: BART and Muni stations have them, they installed fancy French self-cleaning ones* around town and are replacing them now, they even built a pissoir in at least one park.
The public toilets have all been a disaster because they get used more for sex and drug using behavior than for the intended purpose, even when, like the French ones, the doors open automatically after 15 minutes or so. And the ones that don't clean themselves like the French ones are always filthy and smelly and very unpleasant--the city doesn't seem capable of keeping thjem clean.
As for homelessness itself, I've posted this repeatedly but we spend around $300 million annually on our homeless in a variety of ways. A number of shelters exist. The city built some new buildings for the "formerly homeless" (formerly because they are now housed), complete with medical facilities on the ground floors but, at several hundred thousand $ per bed and a limited amount of land, there's only so much of that we can do. Most people agree that most of the chronic homeless have mental health issues and SF has a network of public clinics where they can be medicated and receive some treatment.
Anyway, we have, as of yesterday, a new Mayor who, like all her predecessors, promises to fix the homeless problem. We'll see.
*"old style" French toilets--the kind we've now had for about 2 decades
https://www.sfbetterstreets.org/find...ublic-toilets/
new design (replacement for the ones above)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...k-12985870.php