July 16, 2018

USA: San Francisco Mayor: 'There's More Feces ... Than I've Ever Seen'. In 2015, SF Reached $400K Settlement With Nevada Accused Of Mental Health Patient-Dumping Case. BILLIONS $ For Homeless.


NBC SF Bay Area
written by By Bigad Shaban, Robert Campos and Anthony Rutanashoodech
Friday July 13, 2018

San Francisco Mayor London Breed, in her first one-on-one interview since taking office, said homeless advocacy groups that receive funding from the city need to better educate the homeless to "clean up after themselves."

"I work hard to make sure your programs are funded for the purposes of trying to get these individuals help, and what I am asking you to do is work with your clients and ask them to at least have respect for the community — at least, clean up after themselves and show respect to one another and people in the neighborhood," Breed told the Investigative Unit, referencing her conversations with nonprofit groups aimed at serving the homeless.

When pressed about whether her plan calls for harsher penalties against those who litter or defecate on city streets, Breed said "I didn’t express anything about a penalty." Instead, the mayor said she has encouraged nonprofits "to talk to their clients, who, unfortunately, were mostly responsible for the conditions of our streets."

Viral Investigation Exposed San Francisco's 'Diseased Streets'

A recent NBC Bay Area investigation went viral after exposing an alarming amount of trash, drug needles, and feces scattered across San Francisco.

The report centered around a 153-block survey of downtown San Francisco, which revealed trash on every block, 100 needles, and more than 300 piles of feces along the 20-mile stretch of streets and sidewalks.

On Friday, two days after Breed's inauguration, the new mayor during an afternoon stroll saw firsthand the reality and challenges of the city. Video recorded by NBC Bay Area shows a man prepping a needle as Breed walked by.
More Feces on Sidewalks

"I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here," Breed said. "That is a huge problem and we are not just talking about from dogs — we’re talking about from humans."

San Francisco is slated to spend nearly $280 million this year on housing and services for the homeless — a roughly 40 percent increase compared to just five years ago. Over that same span, however, the number of homeless in the city has largely remained the same at about 7,500 people, according to city counts.

"About 70 percent of the people estimated to be homeless in San Francisco were actually housed in San Francisco before they became homeless," Breed said. "We have to make sure people who live here, [and] sadly, people who are homeless here, that they are also held accountable for taking care of our streets. This is our home."

City’s Street Cleaning Budget Slated for 20 percent Boost
San Francisco spent $65 million on street cleaning last year and plans to add nearly $13 million in additional spending over the next two years.

"I don’t think that the city is poorly spending what it already has," Breed said. "I spend a lot of time on Fillmore Street. I see the people who are part of a program, out there power washing. They’re out there doing what they can to keep the community clean, almost every day, and then right after they leave, maybe an hour or two later, the place is filled with trash again."
KTVU Fox2 local
written by Lisa Fernandez
Monday July 2, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO - The Department of Public Works in San Francisco received no less than four 311 alerts about a “big bag of poo” at the corner of Polk and Cedar streets over the weekend.

By Monday, the agency had closed the cases, indicating the feces had been removed. A records search of city’s non-emergency 311 site showed people complaining about it. There’s a “strong smell of feces,” someone wrote to the agency, “there must be a tone of it somewhere nearby.”

The complaints abounded also on Reddit, as one user took a photo of what appeared to be “20 pounds of poop” at the corner.

Poop on the streets in San Francisco appears to be pretty common. A search for the word “feces” on the city's 311 site yielded more than 15,000 hits.

The most recent was someone complaining through 311 on Monday about 10:30 a.m. about a homeless encampment along The Embarcadero with dozens of bikes, needles, aggressive animals and feces lining the sidewalk.

Department of Works spokeswoman Rachel Gordon said "we don't know what it's from and we're not going to test it. We just got rid of it. This is very unusual."
San Francisco Examiner
written by Joshua Sabatini
October 5, 2015

San Francisco’s more than two-year legal battle with Nevada over the state’s practice of sending psychiatric patients to The City has reached a conclusion in a $400,000 settlement pending approval by the Board of Supervisors and the state of Nevada.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera launched an investigation and subsequently filed a lawsuit over the dumping of patients after the Sacramento Bee exposed the practice by a Las Vegas-based psychiatric hospital in 2013.

The amount of the proposed settlement is $400,000. Other details are not yet public. The lawsuit also sought protections to ensure the practice would not occur again. The Nevada Board of Examiners would need to approve of the terms, which it may do as early as Oct. 13.

In a statement issued Friday to the San Francisco Examiner, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said that the settlement would “validate the patient management be t practices and procedures which Nevada has had in place for two years.” He added, “We look forward to working with California to ensure all patient transfers to and from both states are managed using these best practices and adhering to conditions detailed in the agreement.”

Sandoval did note in the statement that the settlement amount was less than what Herrera had sought and that the proposed settlement would include “reciprocal obligations” by San Francisco “regarding patient status and movement.”

Herrera’s spokesman Matt Dorsey declined to comment on the case, pending approval of the settlement by Nevada. “Nevada’s practice of psychiatric ‘patient dumping’ is shockingly inhumane and illegal,” Herrera said in April 2013.

“Over the past five years, the state of Nevada has transferred to other states approximately 1,500 patients discharged from its state-run Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital, including 500 patients that Nevada sent by Greyhound bus to cities and counties in California,” said the lawsuit filed September 2013 by Herrera in San Francisco Superior Court. The revelations led to the loss of the hospital’s accreditation. It has since been reaccredited.

The patients, many of whom were mentally ill indigent and not California residents, were sent to various destinations with no arrangements for when they arrived, according to the lawsuit.

San Francisco identified 24 patients Nevada bused to San Francisco since April 2008, according to the lawsuit. Twenty were in need of medical care “some within mere hours of getting off the bus,” the lawsuit said.

The patients received care at San Francisco General Hospital or various health clinics under the auspices of the Department of Public Health. About $500,000 in medical care, shelter and other basic necessities was spent on these bus patients, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit argued that Nevada had a legal responsibility under its state law to provide proper care for the patients. Nevada had intended to fight the case at the Supreme Court, but that court decided in June not to hear the appeal, which argued California state courts didn’t have the authority to handle lawsuits between states.

It is not unheard of for cities to send homeless persons or other vulnerable persons to other locations. San Francisco does send segments of its vulnerable population to other jurisdictions under its Homeward Bound program, also known as “A Bus Ticket Home.”

The significant difference from what Nevada did is that San Francisco’s program ensures those sent have family or friends to reunite with along with a stable living situation, are medically stable and are sober. Between 2013 and 2015, the program paid the travel expenses of 1,614 persons.
I'm going to share a snippet of this article to urge you to see the outrageous amount of money they are receiving from us the taxpayer to combat homeless situation. They'll probably build a few buildings within 5 long years, and overpay all of the contractors. Then tell taxpayers they need more because it's never enough for them spending other people's money. We're in THE BILLIONS of dollars now. BILLIONS of dollars to help the homeless crisis?! Really?! What the heck is going on here. This is outrageous. Our state and local governments OWN many abandoned buildings in their possession that they could easily RETROFIT to accommodate the homeless population safely and comfortably. Those same buildings could also offer medical care and other services they need all in one place. (emphasis mine)

The Patch 5/31/18: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had said he did not expect the number to be reduced in any significant way, although he believed an impact would begin to be made throughout this current year as several major programs to fight homelessness are being fully implemented.

The initiatives include Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure approved by city voters to build permanent supportive housing for the homeless, although no units have been completed yet. Another program is Measure H, a sales tax increase approved by county voters in 2017 expected to raise $355 million annually for homeless programs, and the city's plan to spend at least $20 million for temporary homeless shelters.

Gov. Jerry Brown has also proposed dedicating $359 million in budget surplus money this coming fiscal year for homeless programs, but Garcetti and some other leaders want at least $1.5 billion set aside. If the funding is approved, nearly 52,000 Angelenos would receive housing and services over a three-year period. Garcetti's office said.

UPDATE 7/25/2018 at 4:30pm: I added tweets below.

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 5:43 PM

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