The San Francisco Trash/Needles/Poop in the Streets Containment Thread (school, live in)

[USDefault]

Investigative piece on 153 blocks in downtown San Francisco. The lede:

An NBC Bay Area Investigation reveals a dangerous concoction of drug needles, garbage, and feces lining the streets of downtown San Francisco. The Investigative Unit surveyed more than 150 blocks, including some of the city's top tourist destinations, and discovered conditions that are now being compared to some of the worst slums in the world.

Key findings:

• the survey discovered trash on every block surveyed
• vast majority of trash includes "large heaps of garbage, food, and discarded junk."
• 100 drug needles found
• 300 piles of human feces "throughout downtown" San Francisco
• young children walking to school regularly come across dirty needles and human feces
• infectious disease expert says downtown SF "may be even dirtier than slums in some developing countries."
• "The contamination is … much greater than communities in Brazil or Kenya or India"
• SF spends $60.1 million on "Street Environmental Services," i.e. street cleaning
• due to downtown contamination severity, half this amount, $30 million, "goes towards cleaning up feces and needles from homeless encampments and sidewalks."
• it takes 30 minutes to clean a single pile of feces on the sidewalk
• supervisor says, "We're losing tourists. We're losing conventions in San Francisco."

From a teacher:

"We see poop, we see pee, we see needles, and we see trash," said teacher Adelita Orellana. "Sometimes they ask what is it, and that's a conversation that's a little difficult to have with a 2-year old, but we just let them know that those things are full of germs, that they are dangerous, and they should never be touched."

[Matadora]

Yep I've always seen SF as one huge filthy dump...but for some reason everyone just acts as if they don't see it. Thankful I don't live in SF!

I agree with the report that SF is comparable if not worse than many 3rd world countries standards of filth.

[likealady]

Yes finally some stats. I'm been having to use anecdotal evidence in the past, but it really is quite bad. I remember I used to love when it would rain in SF because most of the filth would get washed away. Last year when we had all that rain downtown was so clean... for like a week.

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by Matadora

Yep I've always seen SF as one huge filthy dump...but for some reason everyone just acts as if they don't see it. Thankful I don't live in SF!

I agree with the report that SF is comparable if not worse than many 3rd world countries standards of filth.

Exactly! And that is why many of the streets and public area look like a public toilet / garbage dump. People would rather tell themselves, “no what poop, no what trash, i dont see anything la la la” in many other cities if someone saw a person pooping on the sidewalk, shooting up, drunk or high screaming at people etc they would call the police and the police would rush down and arrest them. Not in SF.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

We went once, won't be back. We've got enough of that in our own downtown.

[BurnInTheMil]

Love it, thank you for posting something with some actual info/stats.

SF truly is disgusting, dirty, and a cesspool.

[Erratikmind]

I grew up in San Francisco during the 60s. It was cleaner and safer then. In my eyes things started to go downhill starting in the mid to late 70s. However, every big city has its own "dumpy" areas. In the case of San Francisco, these areas are getting worse.

[Finper]

SF is distroying itself with liberal kindness and blind eyes. I lived there in the 60's and it was the jewel of California. You used to have to dress up to leave your house. Now it's the land of royalty and peasants.

[LuvSouthOC]

Originally Posted by Finper

SF is distroying itself with liberal kindness and blind eyes. I lived there in the 60's and it was the jewel of California. You used to have to dress up to leave your house. Now it's the land of royalty and peasants.

And techies, far left loons, far left lgbtqia, illegals and homeless.

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by Erratikmind

I grew up in San Francisco during the 60s. It was cleaner and safer then. In my eyes things started to go downhill starting in the mid to late 70s. However, every big city has its own "dumpy" areas. In the case of San Francisco, these areas are getting worse.

I grew up in the 4th largest city in the US (Houston)...to this day downtown Houston is one of the cleanest cities I have ever stepped foot in. The difference is people here care about having a clean city, people here care about not having needles, people shooting up in broad daylight, people pitching tents and sleeping on public land/public benches, people defecating on sidewalks and porches.

We have laws against the behaviors you find in SF and we have a police force who does their job.

There something very wrong with a city and the people who live in that city, who simply ignore what you see destroying SF.