by Carlton Wong
Urban living today in San Francisco often means scrubbing human feces from your garage door or stoop.
The city and its residents are liberal at heart and sympathize with what the homeless must go through every day. Still, even the most liberal among us do not believe there should be a sanitation policeman on patrol looking to cite homeless people who defecate in public. The police have better things to do.
Public toilets seem like a good option on the surface. In reality, however they end up serving as subsidized housing and shelters that facilitate drug use. Pedestrians and even other homeless people are often restricted from using these facilities because they are being used for purposes that do not match their intent.
The coalition on homelessness says most of these homeless people are people like us but are now down on their luck. And as liberal, caring individuals, we must take this at face value.
Most of us would not defecate on other people's property or in public places. Even if we imagined ourselves as homeless, we couldn't imagine defecating in public. Being homeless, by choice or through bad luck, would not lead most of us purposely to live in such conditions. As city residents, we do not want others to live under such conditions, nor do we wish to live under such conditions ourselves.
The human waste problem has been festering in San Francisco because everyone wants to be politically correct. Perhaps there are not enough public toilets or enough open shelters. Making improvements in these, however, requires large sums of money, and much political wrangling to get the money.
Homelessness is a million-dollar industry in San Francisco. There is a solution that may be able to come into fruition without becoming political. It could benefit the homeless and the neighborhoods that everyone shares.
I remember from my first visit to China that everyone used portable commodes for waste control. Often these commodes were just old coffee cans. In the village there was only one outhouse often blocks away from the homes of villagers. At night you would have to use your own personal commode can. These cans can be brought up to date for modern use.
A plastic liner can be inserted to reduce the need for cleaning the can. Handles can be added. The plastic lids can seal in the smells until the waste can be disposed of. Kits can be made with cleanup napkins.
The question of course is can Americans squat to use such commode cans? Billions of non-Americans squat all over the world. I remember a carpenter who was working on a property where there was no toilet facility. He squatted in a coffee can rather than drive to find a toilet. I suspect he learned this during the time he spent in Vietnam.
If this American carpenter could do it I believe any average American could learn. Videos on how to squat can be shown in homeless shelters.
I hope my suggestion of squat cans for the homeless does not sound outrageous. This could be an easy, low-tech, inexpensive solution to our homeless citizens' waste problem. It would place some control back into the hand of the homeless and make the city a better place for everyone.
Carlton Wong
