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San Francisco Gets More Than $203,000 To Solve Longtime Problem Of Human Feces On Streets

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – It has been a longtime problem in San Francisco – the proliferation of human excrement on city streets. One of the hardest hit neighborhoods has been the Tenderloin.

But city officials are looking to do something about it by extending and expanding a public toilet and waste program that launched last summer. San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim said $203,200 in additional funding has been secured for the Tenderloin Pit Stop program.

The pilot project is a partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Works and the nonprofit San Francisco Clean City Coalition that provides portable toilets and sinks, used needle receptacles and dog waste stations at three locations in the Tenderloin.

The facilities are open Tuesday through Friday from 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and are monitored by paid staff. They are removed at the end of each day and serviced off site. The toilets run on solar power.

"We hear from residents and know from our own street-cleaning experience that human waste, dog droppings and improperly discarded needles are major challenges in the Tenderloin that need to be addressed," said San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru when the program was launched. "As a world-class city, we cannot have people, especially the 4,000 children living in the Tenderloin, worry about stepping in poop when they walk through the neighborhood. This is a quality-of-life issue."

Sunny Angulo, a legislative aide to Supervisor Kim, said in the past six months, the program saved the city 165 gallons in cleaning water daily and 2,640 gallons per month. Angulo also said 275 syringes were safely disposed in the first 14 weeks of the program.

"Public toilets are part of keeping a neighborhood healthy, safe and clean, and we are using data to help target the most cost-effective way to address the great need," Kim said in a statement.

Kim is aiming to expand the program with another location in the South of Market neighborhood later this year.

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TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

 

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