41–50 of 132 posts
I have a general theory related to this this article. Disenfranchised people do not take care of the society around them. Rightfully so. If my society doesn't seem to give a shit about me, why should I give a shit about it? If this theory holds true, then graffiti, vandalism, pooping on the streets, and so on, are all symptoms of disenfranchisement. Conversely, go to a neighborhood of homeowners, and look at how well…
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Why would _one_ of these solve any problems?
not sure where "one" came from, there are many of them around portland, concentrated in problem areas. there is typically poop and needles around the toilets (which also have sharps containers that are emptied regularly), and neighboring businesses still get hit fairly heavily. anecdote time: i had one a block from where i was living, and a block from a grocery store - while checking out, a very desperate person char…
However, using Google Maps, I found 4. I'm not sure how many bathrooms you'd normally allocate per person, but I imagine the number of homeless and those out and about would necessitate more than that. How many bathrooms per person are in the typical office building? Should the number of these loos not similarly match the homeless population?
Also, how is a timer in a bathroom at all dignified? If I need 15 minutes to relieve myself, will the Portland Loo kick me out?
If one thing is shown in this article, it's that brown should be used more frequently in charts.
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You know something, we already have police patrolling the streets, and even if it were only open 16 hours a day, that’s still 16 hours of availability. So really, we just don’t have enough, and I don’t think anyone really cares if people are actually shooting up drugs in a bathroom. That’s better than doing it in playgrounds or on park trails and leaving the needles strewn around. It isn’t that we can’t. It completel…
Or provide safe injection sites so junkies have somewhere to go. Our society’s attitude is “if you don’t pay taxes, you don’t deserve help.” That’s so morally wrong I can’t even explain it without going red in the face, but that’s the situation we’re in.
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What if SF employed a few of the homeless to clean them? I’d like to see public money spent invested in people than more unusable/inaccessible utilities. Certainly not a get rich quick scheme, but it’s just a quick thought.
Why should someone with a job cleaning toilets be homeless?
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The former is preferable because you are providing a disservice to the community that will not allow you dignity, even though they can most obviously afford it.
Again, the issue is not affordability but the fact that public restrooms are abused and used for dangerous and often illicit activity The former is not preferable because it spreads disease, and instills disdain for the homeless among the community thus decreasing willingness to dedicate resources towards services helping the homeless (thus hurting those homeless that do try to maintain good hygiene). Not to mention,…
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They have some of those throughout the city. However, they require attendants to be on site during operation because people shoot up drugs, prostitute themselves, or sleep in them. The solution will require much more than some free-to-use restrooms.
You know something, we already have police patrolling the streets, and even if it were only open 16 hours a day, that’s still 16 hours of availability. So really, we just don’t have enough, and I don’t think anyone really cares if people are actually shooting up drugs in a bathroom. That’s better than doing it in playgrounds or on park trails and leaving the needles strewn around. It isn’t that we can’t. It completel…
Let's assume we do install these toilets. These won't be cheap toilets, they will, for a large percentage of their time in service, essentially be "hard living facilities for the mentally ill". Homeless people and vagrants put very strange objects into public toilets in SF, breaking them constantly. The San Francisco public library had to install grinders[1] to handle the load homeless people were putting on public toilets. And this was after they began to constantly monitor the restrooms[2][3]. How many public toilets should we build and how much should we spend on each one per year?
[1] I can't find the source for the grinders but I do recall reading about the installation of them a few years back, maybe someone can provide a link. [2] https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/san-francisco-main-library-t... [3] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-library-s-main-br...
I have a general theory related to this this article. Disenfranchised people do not take care of the society around them. Rightfully so. If my society doesn't seem to give a shit about me, why should I give a shit about it? If this theory holds true, then graffiti, vandalism, pooping on the streets, and so on, are all symptoms of disenfranchisement. Conversely, go to a neighborhood of homeowners, and look at how well…
Something something, fix broken windows.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know something, we already have police patrolling the streets, and even if it were only open 16 hours a day, that’s still 16 hours of availability. So really, we just don’t have enough, and I don’t think anyone really cares if people are actually shooting up drugs in a bathroom. That’s better than doing it in playgrounds or on park trails and leaving the needles strewn around. It isn’t that we can’t. It completel…
Or provide safe injection sites so junkies have somewhere to go. Our society’s attitude is “if you don’t pay taxes, you don’t deserve help.” That’s so morally wrong I can’t even explain it without going red in the face, but that’s the situation we’re in.