Swachh San Francisco? City Forms ‘Poop Patrol’ To Combat Open Defecation

As sighting of human faeces on the sidewalks becomes a regular occurrence in San Francisco, authorities in the city have planned to launch a poop patrol to identify those causing the trouble, Fox News has reported.

Complaints about streams of urine and piles of faeces that can be found daily on city sidewalks have increased 400 per cent in the last ten years. The authorities get up to 65 calls daily and have got over 14,500 complaints in 2018 alone.

This ‘poop map’, made by a software engineer identified as Jenn Wong, shows the concentration of such incidents across the city.

According to experts, this problem has emerged due to the large homeless population in the city. The 7,500 homeless residents can’t find an accommodation in a city where a studio apartment costs $2,500 a month.

But why does San Francisco have a huge homeless population? According to CNBC, at the heart of the problem are the city’s “liberal public policies”.

The local government’s grant for homeless citizens is so generous that it attracts people from across the country. In 2016 alone, authorities in San Francisco reportedly spent a whopping $241 million on homeless services.

The outlet also says that the city’s “liberal judges” have refused to entertain tens of thousands of cases against quality-of-life crimes.

The problem has made international headlines and a major medical convention was cancelled last month due to organisers’ fears of the homeless.

The poop patrol, which will employ six people, will cost about $750,000.

"What we are trying to do is be proactive. So we'll have a crew that will roam around looking for locations. We actually have data for neighbourhoods where we get frequent calls,” said Director of Public Works Mohammed Nuru.

Critics have said that the local authority’s inability to deal with the real problem is bound to attract more homeless people to the city.