Edit: Wow, I'm being downvoted for a personal observation that a story is exaggerated. Sorry if I disturbed your confirmation bias.
True it's not "ankle deep in poop", but if that's the bar where we are comparing it with then there's something truly amiss in a 1-st world city/country.
A lot of these solutions just involve pumping money through injection sites, programs, etc. I think it’s something no amount of money will fix. Something needs to be done about a culture that not only accepts this as normal, but is trying to find ways to make it acceptable and easier to do in hopes that they’ll stop.
There’s a reason other counties bus people into SF: it’s because they know people in SF will put up with it. There will be a constant flow of new people who don’t care about ruining a city.
There's some serious cognitive dissonance here. The people who start in CA and end in Denver, Portland or Austin might not be shitting on the streets themselves but they fight tooth and nail for the kind of public policy that has led cities like SF and SD into their current pediment. They're shitting on the streets by proxy.
Possibly but I'll throw my two cents in. Non-American here with no Dem or Rep axe to grind, SF is the most disgusting western city I've ever been to.
I’ve lived most of my life in Philly, FWIW. Not exactly a bastion of cleanliness.
This is a very rare problem in literally any other Western city. Even in the severely deprived ones which have used needle problems. Dog waste and public urination, maybe.
I don't think it's a cheap shot to criticize SF in this case, and as a liberal city. It takes a woefully unrealistic approach to homelessness. At its core, the problem is the more accommodative you are of homeless people the more you attract. No matter how much money you throw at the problem, you cannot "solve it" as a city. Homelessness has network effects just like the tech industry.
Now I'm all for helping people less fortunate and those down on their luck, and SF does help people, but there are those who are chronically homeless. They fall into three groups: those who prefer the lifestyle, those who are mentally ill, and those who prefer to spend all their money on hard drugs (including drink). You're very unlikely to get these groups off the streets, no matter what you do, but you will still attract them.