San Francisco residents and visitors are continuing to complain about human and animal feces on the streets despite a multi-million dollar effort by the city to reduce the public waste issue.
“It’s the first thought on my mind to watch where I’m stepping on that first step out the door,” resident Adam Kedzorski told the San Francisco Chronicle of the feces crisis in the city. “It unfortunately never leaves my mind.”
Feces related calls are about “17% higher than in 2020 and about 7% higher than in 2019,” according to data analysis from the outlet.
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“The data, pulled from 311 reports, doesn’t differentiate between human and animal feces, and only reflects reports of feces or requests for street cleaning of feces,” the report continued.
San Francisco has attempted a public health and amenities campaign to reduce the amount of feces on the streets. San Francisco Public Works even runs the “Pit-Stop Program” to provide “clean and safe public toilets, as well as used-needle receptacles and dog waste stations,” according to the organization’s website.
“The program is meant to cut down on sidewalk feces at a cost of about $12.5 million a year,” the Chronicle reported.
“We could always use more public toilets,” Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon told the outlet. “I think nobody would disagree with that assessment. But there’s a cost associated with it.”
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A Temple University professor argued that the lack of public toilets in San Francisco has to do with a history of racism and discrimination against the homeless population in the city in the 19th and 20th centuries.
“It’s kind of simple and kind of sinister,” Temple University Professor Bryant Simon said. “We got rid of them to disappear the people who used them who we thought were a problem. Now you have open defecation, which everyone is affected by and we’re using bathrooms to try to put a Band-Aid on the problem.”
San Francisco has also faced its own controversies over government funding for toilets.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed and her administration received criticism for its handling of a $1.7 million toilet project. After more than 15 months, the toilet was finally installed in Noe Valley Town Square.
Mayor Breed’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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