in World News POOP EPIDEMIC: San Francisco Feces Complaints Skyrocket Despite Spending Millions on Public Bathrooms
The issue of feces covering San Francisco’s streets is worsening despite the city spending millions of dollars on public bathrooms.
According to a report from The San Francisco Chronicle, complaints of poop in the city’s streets are on the rise, a trend it complains is creating “fodder” for the city’s conservative critics:
During the pandemic, feces-related calls fell as people stayed home, and the city moved unhoused people indoors. But a Chronicle data analysis found that the number of feces-related calls has crept up past pre-pandemic levels. The calls are about 17% higher than in 2020 and about 7% higher than in 2019. 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 increase comes despite San Francisco investing in public toilets, doing more frequent street cleanings and getting more homeless people off the street.The vast majority of San Francisco’s more than 280 public restrooms are in parks, community centers, libraries, fire stations and other city buildings. There are also stand-alone staffed toilets run by two different city departments and stand-alone unstaffed toilets run by a private company in partnership with the city.
Last November, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis highlighted the severity of the problem by holding up a “poop map” during his debate with California Governor Gavin Newsom.
“This is a map of San Francisco,” DeSantis said at the time, holding up a map of the city with brown markings across it. “There’s a lot of plots on that. You may be asking: ‘What is that plotting?’ Well, this is an app where they plot the human faeces that are found on the streets of San Francisco.