Examining a Contaminated City – San Francisco’s Streets and Sidewalks

Recently, a report from NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit was released, stating the city of San Francisco hired public relations firm JBR Partners to survey the cleanliness of the city from 2013 to 2018 in order to assess the effectiveness of the Public Works Department. During the firm’s research, the company claimed last year showed significant improvement in the city’s cleanliness, earning near perfect scores. It also claimed the city was the cleanest it had been in four years.

Conversely, San Francisco’s 311 system told a different story. The system received a dramatic increase in complaints surrounding cleanliness. In the span of four years, trash complaints increased 40 percent, human waste complaints rose 96 percent, and drug needle complaints soared to a 228 percent increase.

In fact, the city of San Francisco has been compared to some of the world’s poorest slums, often outranking the likes of Brazil and India in terms of contamination.

But what led to this current cesspool? The answer is multifaceted.

EXPLOSION OF TECH BUSINESSES

As the city’s technology business has exploded, gentrification has taken place, pushing the homeless population to concentrated areas. Rent and land prices have increased significantly, making it difficult for the homeless and low-income families to find affordable housing. Statistics show the typical San Francisco household makes roughly $96,600 per year, almost double the national median household income of $57,600.

SHORTAGE OF SHELTERS

Since 2016, San Francisco has added 900 shelter beds, yet the waiting list is still nearly 1,000 people long. The best technique for keeping the chronic homeless permanently housed has been proved to be supportive housing. While the city has the most supportive housing units of any major community in America, it still falls short of what is needed.

MEDIA SENSATIONALISM

While San Francisco homelessness numbers have remained relatively stagnant in recent years, it may not be that the filth of public areas is getting particularly worse, but rather a spotlight has illuminated the more grotesque aspects of the problem.

In July of this year, San Francisco made headlines after a major medical association pulled its convention away from the city, citing its members no longer feel safe. Between open drug use on sidewalks, threatening behavior, and mental illness, the association will move their convention, bringing its $40 million dollar contribution to the local economy with it.

New San Francisco Mayor London Breed also contributed to this sensationalism, claiming, “…there is more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here”. Subsequently, the San Francisco Public Works department has created a designated waste clean up team, nicknamed the “Poop Patrol” by media outlets.

The city’s choice to funnel money into cleaning up the consequence instead of addressing the root cause could be attributed to the mocking antics of the media; joking about a public health crisis is far from funny, yet outlets capitalize on clickbait. Highlighting the problem has been good in some ways to spark change, but also has shifted the narrative to a humorous tone, seriously undermining the threat to the community’s most vulnerable population.

NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAM

For over 25 years, the city of San Francisco has supported a “needle exchange program” aimed at handing out clean needles with the hope of collecting some in return. The reality is while they may help reduce transmission rates of diseases, the 400,000 syringes distributed per month will, most likely, end up on the streets and pose serious risks for pedestrians. If you ask any bay area personal injury lawyer, the government may be liable for any injury sustained on a sidewalk due to lack of action, such as failure to clean up needles they supplied.

INCREASE IN DRUG ADDICTION

In conjunction with the above, the increase in opioid addiction may also play a factor. According to The Center for Disease Control (CDC), 42,249 Americans lost their lives to opioid overdoses in 2016, which was nearly five times higher than the rate in 1990. 4,654 of those Americans were Californians. The long-debated question stands: do needle exchange programs and safe injection sites enable drug abuse behavior or help treat an existing problem?

Understanding what led to the current situation San Francisco streets and sidewalks face may help glean insight into the best ways to find a solution, although there may not be one singular answer. Multiple factors have led to the current situation, which may require multiple solutions. While the city continues to pump money into treating the problem, such as surveys to determine the effectiveness of the Public Works Department, a only time will tell if these methods will satisfy the city’s needs and ultimately solve the root cause.