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posted by janrinok on Sunday August 26 2018, @07:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the must-be-a-cheaper-way dept.

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/


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @09:19PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @09:19PM (#726692)

    I have never seen another American city as filthy with such aggressive, drug addled bums as San Francisco.
    Cities on the East Coast don't have this level of problem because they treat them more harshly. San Francisco coddles them. Guess where the bums all go then?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @01:59AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @01:59AM (#726764)

    So the solution is to treat the homeless like crap so they go elsewhere? The weather probably plays a part in it: if you are homeless, you want to go where the weather is best all year around, and the East is not it.

  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday August 27 2018, @09:58AM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 27 2018, @09:58AM (#726833) Journal
    New York doesn't have as bad a problem, because anyone homeless in a New York winter will probably either freeze to death, or sleep on top of one of the metro line vents to keep warm and asphyxiate in their sleep. Last time I was in San Francisco in the winter, it was the second week of January and the temperatures was 10-16 degrees (centigrade, no idea what that is in silly units). You can sleep outside with a fairly thin blanket in that weather. apparently the average temperature for SF in January is 10º, the average for NY is 2º. Keep in mind that the overnight temperature will be lower than the average. In one city, you might get a bit chilly overnight, in the other you'll have frost forming on you. Which do you think is going to end up with more people sleeping on the streets by the end of winter?
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    sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:46PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:46PM (#726915)

      Your explanation for temperature does nothing to explain why the bums in SF are so much more aggressive than the East Coast bums.