https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA3t2RqkYVo
I Left My Filth In San Francisco
NBC investigators rated the city āone of the filthiest slums on earth.ā After surveying 153 blocks in the downtown area, āincluding some of the cityās top tourist destinations,ā they discovered āa dangerous concoction of drug needles, garbage, and feces lining the streets of downtown San Francisco.ā
Every single block surveyed by the NBC crew had trash littered about. 41 of those 153 blocks had drug syringes and 96 blocks were contaminated with human excrement.
One has to wonder why a city the size of San Francisco, with such a rich history and vital tourist trade, doesnāt pick up after itself?
The problem, as revealed by the San Francisco Chronicle and many other sources, is homeless people. It seems they just wonāt use the public toilets or garbage cans provided by the city.
Things have gotten so bad that San Francisco mayor Ed Lee headed up a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, effective July 1, 2016. The Chronicle reported that the civic group āspent $275 million on homelessness and supportive housing in the fiscal year.ā This yearās budget is $305 million.
Since its inception, city Public Works cleanup personnel have collected āmore than 679 tons of trash from homeless tent, and collecting more than 100,000 used syringes from the camps in that time span.ā That is a lot of garbage.
People are sounding off about the awful mess. In both 2015 and 2016, the cityās cityās 311 line got more than 22,000 complaints about needles and feces around homeless encampments.
Ironically, Channel 4 News steered us toward what might be part of the real problem:
āThe city of San Francisco hands out millions of syringes a year to drug users but has little or no controls over how they are later discarded.ā
Yes, San Francisco has so many folks with no place to live that they have built tent cities, a recent American phenomenon. According to a Yale Law School study published in March 2014, titled Welcome Home: The Rise of Tent Cities in the United Statesā gives the reason for the current high rates of homelessness experienced across the nation:
āBecause of the economic recession and the financial and mortgage foreclosure crises, homelessness has increased and intensified in the United States over the past several years.ā