San Francisco, the city that shits
Who doesn't love the smell of fresh feces while taking a morning stroll?
For two weeks in August, I roamed the streets of Mexico City. I’d go on long walks across town, indulging in all the agua frescas and street food my heart desired. Of course, doing all of this resulted in me having to use the bathroom.
To my surprise, Mexico City had public bathrooms figured out. Every park, open-air market, and municipal space had a bathroom. They weren’t digesting (my expectations for public restrooms are low); all of the ones I went to were clean. For 5 centavos (cents) or $0.0025 USD, anybody could relieve themselves.
When I returned to San Francisco in September, I was repulsed at how often I saw human feces on the street. Coincidentally, poop on the streets was also present in Mexico City. (They don’t have public trash cans, so people let their dogs poop on the sidewalk, and city workers clean them once a week) Still, I couldn’t comfortably and confidently walk down a street in San Francisco without being cautious of where I stepped next.
In 2018, after a reported 28,084 sidewalk shits, San Francisco enacted a 6-person Poop Patrol to steam clean the streets daily. Unfortunately, things haven’t gotten better with OpenTheBooks.com recording more than 125,000 dookies (not even counting the individual poos in each dump) on San Francisco streets since 2020.
Who’s doing all the public defecating? Perhaps the 8,323 unhoused individuals living both sheltered and unsheltered around the City. While it’s easy (and privileged) to place blame on people experiencing homelessness, I place blame on the local government (and capitalism). The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing's budget for the 2024 fiscal year was $636 million, and with approximately 52,600 vacant residential units you’d think the homeless problem would be solved. (I’m not saying no progress is being made but the obvious solution to homelessness is housing)
Where do you go when nobody wants you there? For the last two months, the City has double-downed on encampment sweeps, “clearing” over 1,200 tents and structures. These sweeps do more harm than good by literally throwing away people’s belongings and identification, making it more difficult to access services and find peace of mind.
Imagine somebody throwing everything you have away just because you don’t have anywhere to put it. Arresting and citing people for illegal lodging when there are less than half as many shelter beds (4,200) than there are unhoused people is outright cruel.
I just might shit on the sidewalk in solidarity. (I won’t)
This is a genuinely a think piece man
"Who’s doing all the public defecating?" got me 😭