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So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the d

So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem? On the streets of San Francisco I have seen several passed out heroin junkies lying flat on their back right there on the sidewalk, needles nearby, perhaps passed out or worse with some sort of projectile body effluent leaking out of them or trailing behind them. This is probably an average day at Starbucks for a non-discriminatory bathroom in a high addict area.

HeavenBanned 8y ago
Public/homeless welfare programs. Which the city of SF is not willing to fund.
ndnxhs 8y ago
This is a San Francisco problem. In most of the world such a sight would be very rare.
- derefr 8y ago
  A Vancouver BC problem, too. Really, it's a problem with any city that has better support for disadvantaged populations (homeless, drug addicts) than the country it exists within—because those populations will flock to it in order to receive that support, and thus put a far larger support burden on city/NGO resources than you'd expect given the population.
  - notthemessiah 8y ago
    I don't know about Canada, but the US is the only place where "Greyhound therapy" is a thing, and no it's not homeless playing with dogs. Basically, cities just ship their homeless/mentally-ill to another city via Greyhound bus lines. Some cities get the short-end of the stick more than others. I discovered it first hand taking a bus from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound_therapy
    - mc32 8y ago
      That practice is from sending people back to their hometown or last known good address. Cities have limited resources to they kick the can back to its origin. It’s obviously not any kind of solution but it stems from limited resources and wanting to spend it on locals rather than drifters, so to speak.
    - butisaidsudo 8y ago
      Greyhond therapy is a thing in Canada as well, although I've never heard that exact phrase before. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeless-saskatchewan-arrive-vancouver-1.3484511 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeless-sas...
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    In the case of Vancouver, I went to elementary school a block away from East Hastings. The benefit of the way they do it there is that those elements stay on E. Hastings for the most part, and aren't out causing discomfort for the rest of the city. I recall there being functioning public washrooms there from when I lived there as a kid.
ajuc 8y ago
1. decriminalization of drugs use 2. public healthcare 3. state-funded homeless shelters And then not only you don't have a problem with all these undesirables messing up your public toilets - you also don't have a significant part of your society wasting their lives. Oh but that would literally be communism, right. Carry on, then.
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  1. Drug use was not a crime few decades bug. Smoking is not a crime today. It tried before. It doesn't work. 2. Public healthcare is working well if you are not interested in result. It tried before. It doesn't work. 3. Nobody will pay ever penny to care about zero cost homes. It tried before. It doesn't work.
  - ajuc 8y ago
    > It tried before. It doesn't work. It works in Portugal. > Public healthcare is working well if you are not interested in result. It tried before. It doesn't work Public healthcare works in almost every country on Earth, and in most of developed countries it works really well. At least better than that in USA (looking at the life expectancy). > Nobody will pay ever penny to care about zero cost homes. It tried before. It doesn't work. They won't have a choice. That's what taxes are for.
    - v_lisivka 8y ago
      > It works in Portugal. Is number of drug uses reduced? Nope. It risen. Is criminal drug activity reduced? Nope. It risen. So, what exactly "works" in Portugal? > Public healthcare works in almost every country on Earth, and in most of developed countries it works really well. At least better than that in USA (looking at the life expectancy). If you are not a drug user, your life expectancy is at same level as in Europe. I have personal experience with public health care. Public healthcare is interested in popping you out of clinic as fast as possible. For example, I received no treatment for my little pain in the back until I was unable to move. In result, I spent more than year in bed. Private clinic identified my problem _decade_ before, but their results were ignored by government clinic. I was stupid enough to trust government clinic. And so on. I can tell a lot if you want to listen. > That's what taxes are for. I want to be homeless then.
jdietrich 8y ago
> So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem? Universal healthcare, harm reduction and rehab services, comprehensive welfare, affordable housing and a sufficient number of properly trained and resourced social workers.
- velobro 8y ago
  That's already been tried. SF spends more on homeless per capita than anywhere else. Time for a police task force of a couple hundred forcing them to get rid of their addiction in jail.
  - randomsearch 8y ago
    Presumably San Francisco’s problem is being an outlier in a nation that does little about its homeless epidemic. More affordable housing, a proper welfare system, and public healthcare seem to have solved this problem in almost all other western countries. The UK is trying a related experiment. We’re becoming more like the USA - closing hostels, slashing local authority budgets by ~ 60%, privatising healthcare, removing social welfare. The result - a huge rise in homelessness. Most major cities in the UK are now reminiscent of the US. Never thought I’d see it here. Talking to homeless people in London, the most common reason for being on the street seems to be welfare being withdrawn or problems getting housed.
    - tim333 8y ago
      Londoner here - yeah it doesn't seem that great an idea.
  - inferiorhuman 8y ago
    > That's already been tried. Sure, and the shelters are full with long wait lists. It's almost as if there's widespread interest in getting off the street. > SF spends more on homeless per capita than anywhere else. Source?
- 8y ago
willvarfar 8y ago
In big european cities many fast food places have weird blue lighting in the toilets; apparently it makes it hard for junkies to find their veins or something.
- mont 8y ago
  That's pretty common in America too
- mikey_p 8y ago
  The Portland loo features this too, it's only on a night.
samcheng 8y ago
The streets of Portland aren't quite as bad as those of San Francisco, but there are plenty of heroin addicts in the Northwest. This particular article doesn't seem to state it directly, but those poor souls are exactly what this public toilet was designed to be resilient to. https://portlandloo.com/faq/ https://portlandloo.com/faq/
ascar 8y ago
The only time I've seen something similar to what you describe was on my trip in New York. And I've been to about 20 countries across 4 continents. It's an American homegrown problem with too much focus on capitalism. edit: You can downvote this, but it doesn't make it untrue nor irrelevant to the point. If you have basically no people living on the streets, you also avoid this problem. I'm still shocked from seeing homeless (nearly) die in the cold in New York. With a better social systems it's maybe not fully solvable, but reducible to a point where it's no longer an apparent problem in every day live. It does work, many countries in the world do it, also in major cities.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  > It's an American homegrown problem with too much focus on capitalism. Capitalism does not preclude charity. It could be argued that it precludes state-funded social programs, but the US has a very large number of those already, so it follows that Capitalism (as implemented here) is not the cause of this problem. Regardless of what I or anyone else thinks about the necessity and morality of those programs, they do exist, and they are ineffective. The question is "Why are the ineffective?"
- dahdum 8y ago
  Most European countries also allow involuntary psychiatric treatment and admission, while the US does not. If you started forcibly hospitalizing the mentally ill homeless in SF you would "solve" the issue pretty quickly, but that goes against some core American values.
  - magduf 8y ago
    The US used to be like this, and changed somewhere in the 1980s. It wasn't because of "core American values", it was because of the removal of funding.
    - dahdum 8y ago
      There was widespread abuse and the expense kept going up, laws were passed that curtailed involuntary commitment (based on civil rights, not expense), and we are left with what we have today.
inferiorhuman 8y ago
Wet houses are something that's been proposed in San Francisco. IMO they would be a good start.
notthemessiah 8y ago
San Francisco half-asses the social services, they just give out clean needles without considering how to dispose of them. Successful cities provide safe injection sites and supplement them with harm reduction strategies.

HeavenBanned 8y ago

Public/homeless welfare programs. Which the city of SF is not willing to fund.

ndnxhs 8y ago

This is a San Francisco problem. In most of the world such a sight would be very rare.

derefr 8y ago
A Vancouver BC problem, too. Really, it's a problem with any city that has better support for disadvantaged populations (homeless, drug addicts) than the country it exists within—because those populations will flock to it in order to receive that support, and thus put a far larger support burden on city/NGO resources than you'd expect given the population.
- notthemessiah 8y ago
  I don't know about Canada, but the US is the only place where "Greyhound therapy" is a thing, and no it's not homeless playing with dogs. Basically, cities just ship their homeless/mentally-ill to another city via Greyhound bus lines. Some cities get the short-end of the stick more than others. I discovered it first hand taking a bus from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhound_therapy
  - mc32 8y ago
    That practice is from sending people back to their hometown or last known good address. Cities have limited resources to they kick the can back to its origin. It’s obviously not any kind of solution but it stems from limited resources and wanting to spend it on locals rather than drifters, so to speak.
  - butisaidsudo 8y ago
    Greyhond therapy is a thing in Canada as well, although I've never heard that exact phrase before. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeless-saskatchewan-arrive-vancouver-1.3484511 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeless-sas...
- microcolonel 8y ago
  In the case of Vancouver, I went to elementary school a block away from East Hastings. The benefit of the way they do it there is that those elements stay on E. Hastings for the most part, and aren't out causing discomfort for the rest of the city. I recall there being functioning public washrooms there from when I lived there as a kid.

ajuc 8y ago

1. decriminalization of drugs use 2. public healthcare 3. state-funded homeless shelters And then not only you don't have a problem with all these undesirables messing up your public toilets - you also don't have a significant part of your society wasting their lives. Oh but that would literally be communism, right. Carry on, then.

v_lisivka 8y ago
1. Drug use was not a crime few decades bug. Smoking is not a crime today. It tried before. It doesn't work. 2. Public healthcare is working well if you are not interested in result. It tried before. It doesn't work. 3. Nobody will pay ever penny to care about zero cost homes. It tried before. It doesn't work.
- ajuc 8y ago
  > It tried before. It doesn't work. It works in Portugal. > Public healthcare is working well if you are not interested in result. It tried before. It doesn't work Public healthcare works in almost every country on Earth, and in most of developed countries it works really well. At least better than that in USA (looking at the life expectancy). > Nobody will pay ever penny to care about zero cost homes. It tried before. It doesn't work. They won't have a choice. That's what taxes are for.
  - v_lisivka 8y ago
    > It works in Portugal. Is number of drug uses reduced? Nope. It risen. Is criminal drug activity reduced? Nope. It risen. So, what exactly "works" in Portugal? > Public healthcare works in almost every country on Earth, and in most of developed countries it works really well. At least better than that in USA (looking at the life expectancy). If you are not a drug user, your life expectancy is at same level as in Europe. I have personal experience with public health care. Public healthcare is interested in popping you out of clinic as fast as possible. For example, I received no treatment for my little pain in the back until I was unable to move. In result, I spent more than year in bed. Private clinic identified my problem _decade_ before, but their results were ignored by government clinic. I was stupid enough to trust government clinic. And so on. I can tell a lot if you want to listen. > That's what taxes are for. I want to be homeless then.

jdietrich 8y ago

> So how do you solve the heroin junky passing out/projectile vomiting/falling asleep/dying/leaving needles around/defecating everywhere but the toilet with the door locked problem? Universal healthcare, harm reduction and rehab services, comprehensive welfare, affordable housing and a sufficient number of properly trained and resourced social workers.

velobro 8y ago
That's already been tried. SF spends more on homeless per capita than anywhere else. Time for a police task force of a couple hundred forcing them to get rid of their addiction in jail.
- randomsearch 8y ago
  Presumably San Francisco’s problem is being an outlier in a nation that does little about its homeless epidemic. More affordable housing, a proper welfare system, and public healthcare seem to have solved this problem in almost all other western countries. The UK is trying a related experiment. We’re becoming more like the USA - closing hostels, slashing local authority budgets by ~ 60%, privatising healthcare, removing social welfare. The result - a huge rise in homelessness. Most major cities in the UK are now reminiscent of the US. Never thought I’d see it here. Talking to homeless people in London, the most common reason for being on the street seems to be welfare being withdrawn or problems getting housed.
  - tim333 8y ago
    Londoner here - yeah it doesn't seem that great an idea.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  > That's already been tried. Sure, and the shelters are full with long wait lists. It's almost as if there's widespread interest in getting off the street. > SF spends more on homeless per capita than anywhere else. Source?
8y ago

willvarfar 8y ago

In big european cities many fast food places have weird blue lighting in the toilets; apparently it makes it hard for junkies to find their veins or something.

mont 8y ago
That's pretty common in America too
mikey_p 8y ago
The Portland loo features this too, it's only on a night.

samcheng 8y ago

The streets of Portland aren't quite as bad as those of San Francisco, but there are plenty of heroin addicts in the Northwest. This particular article doesn't seem to state it directly, but those poor souls are exactly what this public toilet was designed to be resilient to. https://portlandloo.com/faq/ https://portlandloo.com/faq/

ascar 8y ago

The only time I've seen something similar to what you describe was on my trip in New York. And I've been to about 20 countries across 4 continents. It's an American homegrown problem with too much focus on capitalism. edit: You can downvote this, but it doesn't make it untrue nor irrelevant to the point. If you have basically no people living on the streets, you also avoid this problem. I'm still shocked from seeing homeless (nearly) die in the cold in New York. With a better social systems it's maybe not fully solvable, but reducible to a point where it's no longer an apparent problem in every day live. It does work, many countries in the world do it, also in major cities.

LyndsySimon 8y ago
> It's an American homegrown problem with too much focus on capitalism. Capitalism does not preclude charity. It could be argued that it precludes state-funded social programs, but the US has a very large number of those already, so it follows that Capitalism (as implemented here) is not the cause of this problem. Regardless of what I or anyone else thinks about the necessity and morality of those programs, they do exist, and they are ineffective. The question is "Why are the ineffective?"
dahdum 8y ago
Most European countries also allow involuntary psychiatric treatment and admission, while the US does not. If you started forcibly hospitalizing the mentally ill homeless in SF you would "solve" the issue pretty quickly, but that goes against some core American values.
- magduf 8y ago
  The US used to be like this, and changed somewhere in the 1980s. It wasn't because of "core American values", it was because of the removal of funding.
  - dahdum 8y ago
    There was widespread abuse and the expense kept going up, laws were passed that curtailed involuntary commitment (based on civil rights, not expense), and we are left with what we have today.

inferiorhuman 8y ago

Wet houses are something that's been proposed in San Francisco. IMO they would be a good start.

notthemessiah 8y ago

San Francisco half-asses the social services, they just give out clean needles without considering how to dispose of them. Successful cities provide safe injection sites and supplement them with harm reduction strategies.