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Everyone knows that America's big cities and especially San Francisco live in their own financial bubbles.
Average rent in the City by the Bay is nearly four times greater than the US average, coming in at $3,750 a month for a one-bedroom apartment. The cost of living is 80 per cent higher than the rest of America. A typical cup of coffee costs a demented $6 – and some will charge a mind-boggling $20. The internet surge of the past few years has only deepened the problem: tech bros earning six-figure salaries have edged out working families, and homelessness, despite a slight retreat recently, remains high.
But among all the issues that have been rudely visited upon San Francisco, the one that has rich people most riled up is also the most human: shit. As in other people's shit. Dog shit, too, but mostly human shit.
Thanks to the impossible cost of living in the city and a repeated refusal by residents to cough up enough money to deal with the jump in homeless folk, more people that[sic] ever before are living on the streets with no where to go at night and – thanks to no one wanting to dirty up wonderfully clean and luxurious shopping centers and office buildings – no where to go (as in go) during the day. The result: shit. Tons of it.
"I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I've ever seen growing up here," said the city's new mayor London Breed recently. "That is a huge problem and we are not just talking about from dogs – we’re talking about from humans."
And so San Francisco has decided to deal with it in the only way it knows how: pay others to erase the problem from its sight. But before you wonder who on earth would accept a job cleaning up other people's excrement in one of the most expensive cities in the world, consider this: it pays well. Really well.
[...] All of which means that if you are lucky enough to grab a coveted spot on the Poop Patrol – it's a ten-person crew with its own minivan – you will earn a base salary of $71,760 a year. Add in benefits including health insurance, pension and so on and it brings the package to a rather enticing $184,678 a year.
Source: www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/25/san_francisco_clean_up/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @08:49PM (7 children)
There's also laws requiring authorities to provide minimal services like public rest rooms, homeless shelters and rehab centers for addicts. i.e. The laws forbidding public urination (and deification I guess) were successfully challenged dozens of times during the 80s and 90s when police officers were staking out (gay) pubs and arresting men taking a leak at the walls facing the pubs since there were long lines at the pub and no public facilities around.
San Francisco is simply paying the price for decades of neocon homophobia, corruption and neglect. The American people want a class system like India. So now they get to live in India-like cities. Seems reasonable to me.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 26 2018, @08:56PM
Speaking of India, one peculiar question is raised: Why are all the poop patrol folks White? Could one not hire H1-B people from India, who are no strangers to poo, and hire more of them and at a fraction of the cost?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday August 26 2018, @09:26PM (1 child)
Public deification? I do not think that word means what you think it means! Holy auto-correct, Batman!
"I am a God! You are like the buzzing of flies to me!"
(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Monday August 27 2018, @02:55PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Interesting) by schad on Monday August 27 2018, @12:50AM (1 child)
I feel like you haven't really thought this part of your argument through.
California is renowned through the US for its leftist politics.
And San Francisco, specifically, is about as far left of California as California is of, say, Texas. It also has long had a reputation for being not merely accepting, but welcoming to homosexuals.
You've picked quite possibly the only place in the country where this argument is patently absurd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:08PM
Never lived there, have you. And that wasn't a question. Those of us who have know different.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @10:47AM (1 child)
SF is a bastion of neocon homophobia? really?
I'd always had the impression that SF was the core of the hippie movement and has been a haven for gay people and all varieties of sexual kink ever since the 70's
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @09:50PM
Not the politicians and "elites".