San Francisco has gone down the toilet

Of all of the places I would like to visit, San Francisco is not on that list.

Given the current political and cultural climate in California, there's not a whole lot there that interests me.

But San Francisco takes the cake.

The Golden Gate mecca has a new mayor but an old problem.

Put bluntly, the city is overrun with feces from its growing homeless population. It has become the Poop Paradise of America.

The new mayor sees the problem and wants a change.

But instead of putting the blame on the homeless, she blames the heavily-funded homeless advocacy groups.

The mayor wants the advocates to teach the homeless how to "clean up after themselves".

A preschool teacher in San Francisco said students are being educated about the germs and the dangerous conditions on the streets.

"We see poop, we see pee, we see needles and we see trash", the teacher said.

The city will spend $280 million this year to address the growing problem of homelessness. But that has brought zero improvement to the filthy situation.

Despite the funding and the manpower devoted to addressing the issue, "public defecators" remain abundant.

Given the liberal-leaning nature of San Francisco, the new mayor has no plans for increased enforcement or penalties for those who use the city streets as their personal restrooms.

Some of the homeless population is the result of skyrocketing housing prices in San Francisco. Others are drug users or mentally ill who camp out in empty lots or along sidewalks in some neighborhoods.

There are an estimated 7,500 homeless in the city although city residents peg that number much higher.

If that estimate is correct, the city is spending upwards of $3,500 per homeless to teach them not to poop in public.

The prevailing poop problem in San Francisco will never make national headlines. Goodness, we have much greater issues to address.

Yet it's a sad commentary on society and liberalism and the cultural decay that infests some of our urban centers.

When a city provides free needles for drug users and fails to penalize those who defecate in public, what can you expect?

Michael Jensen is the publisher of the Standard Democrat in Sikeston, Missouri.