Civic Doodie: San Francisco Using SnapCrap App To Fight Turds On The Streets

San Francisco’s streets have a problem with skidmarks and its not the kind left by tires. I found articles and maps dating back to 2011 that keep track of where the highest levels of excrement are and last month the city established a ‘Proactive Human Waste Unit’ specifically for removing turds from the sidewalks.

Via KRON News:

San Francisco has been named the ‘doo-doo’ capital of the United States with 20,899 poop complaints reported in 2017, according to RealtyHop. They did a comparison of 311 poop complaints in Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco. This study includes dog and human poop sightings.

While 2017 was the worst year on record in San Francisco, research shows that 2018 is on track to beat that. Golden Gate Park has an average of 3218.75 yearly complaints per 10,000 households.

According to the study, as of Aug. 31 this year, Golden Gate Park has more complaints than it had last year. San Francisco Department of Animal says that the city has 120,000 dogs, but the real issue is the number of homeless people without shelter.

There were many aspects of the issue that didn’t occur to me including the power of pee. The city has had to replace hundreds of street light posts corroded by urine and the NY Times reported a car was even crushed by a corroded light post in 2015. (Think I’m not alone when I say I’ll no longer be drinking mine.)

To combat this issue & help the ‘Proactive Human Waste Unit’ the SnapCrap App has stepped up with’ the fastest way to request street cleaning in San Francisco’. Creator Sean Miller who moved there from Vermont says he designed it after becoming annoyed with the city’s complicated 311 reporting system. His SnapCrap App opens straight to camera mode letting users photograph the poop & then the app streamlines the 311 process by filling in the map location & other info.

From NBC Bay Area:

“I see poop” is one of the random automated comments that Miller designed to fill out the required comment section on the city’s form. He said he wanted to make reporting public health issues fun for the community.

“A couple months ago I was still getting really frustrated seeing this stuff everyday and hearing people complain about it that I just decided to build the damn thing. I figured that if myself and all of my friends and housemates wanted it there must be a bunch of other people that would find value in it as well,” Miller continued.

I can see appreciating this app if I were living on a crap covered street, but it’s definitely a bandaid over the real situation of homelessness. As much as residents hate the poop, those in tough times probably hate pooping on the street just as much (unless you’re into that sort of thing). Obviously way easier said than done, but it would be much better to get people off the streets instead of picking up their butt nuts. For a progressive city flush with tech money, you’d think they’d be able to wipe out this problem.