San Francisco's 'poop problem' and homelessness crisis is so dire that the city's new mayor said she saw 'more feces' on the city's streets than she's ever seen
- In a recent interview with NBC Bay Area, San Francisco's new mayor London Breed said she saw "more feces" on the sidewalks of the city during a recent stroll than she had ever seen.
- Breed's findings are a part of a broader issue affecting the city by the Bay in which a lack of affordable housing has spawned a homelessness crisis, leading to copious amounts of drug needles, garbage and feces being found in the streets.
- Breed was sworn in as mayor last Wednesday and among her endeavors is to increase the construction of affordable housing in San Francisco and implement supervised and safe injection sites, where individuals can use their own drugs indoors instead of in public spaces.
San Francisco's new mayor London Breed has lived in the city by the Bay for most of her life - and in all that time, she told a local NBC affiliate that she's never seen as much human feces piled on the sidewalks as she did during a recent stroll through the city.
"I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I've ever seen growing up here," Breed told NBC in a recent interview. "That is a huge problem and we are not just talking about from dogs - we're talking about from humans."
Breed's findings are a part of a broader issue affecting San Francisco in which 7,499 homeless individuals live on the city's streets without access to public restrooms and other necessary resources. Due to a variety of factors, including a lack of affordable housing and shortcomings in the mental healthcare system, the homelessness crisis in the city has resulted in drug needles, human feces and garbage riddling the streets to a degree comparable to that in some of the world's dirtiest slums.
The destitution on the streets has made for a startling contrast to the tech industry wealth on display throughout the city, as companies like Google, Facebook and Salesforce have staffed up with highly-paid computer programmers and other employees.
Breed, a San Francisco native who grew up in the city's public housing, was sworn in as mayor last Wednesday and among her endeavors is to increase the construction of affordable housing and implement safe, supervised injection sites for homeless individuals to use drugs instead of the very public drug activity the city sees daily.
Just last week during Breed's tour of the city, a video captured by NBC Bay Area shows a man appearing to prepare a needle as the mayor walks past him.
But a promise that Breed gave to NBC during last week's interview was that the city will see cleaner streets within three months of her mayoral inauguration. That means that by October, perhaps San Francisco's "poop problem" will have lessened.