San Francisco stores all sorts of data about its streets, including where the city gets the most calls for poop. In 2022, an address in the Bayview had an ignominious reputation for being the shittiest in town, and in 2023 it’s back on top, according to 311 hotline stats.
But do the numbers unfairly tarnish the reputation of an address on the corner of Oakdale Avenue and Third Street?
As of January 2022, the address was 1615 Oakdale Ave. Subject to as many as 174 calls to 311 reporting animal or human waste, according to a tally compiled by the city.
But the 311 complaints are actually mostly related to a painted electrical box which is unfortunate to rust at its base. The complaints appear to have been repeatedly filed by the same person, according to the Department of Public Works. Most inquiries sent via SMS contain an identical picture of the rusty signal box.
The painted, rusty box sits on the corner of Oakdale Avenue and Third Street on May 2, 2023 Liz Lindqwister/The Standard
Despite the dual nature of these requests, Public Works continues to send cleaning teams to the site two to three times a week in what department officials say is a “mixture of proactive and 311 service request responses.”
However, the 311 response notes reviewed by the standard repeatedly stated that no human excrement was found at the site and that the “traffic signal has already been steam cleaned.” Another completed 311 report found the area smelled nice, and 17 requests were marked as duplicates, some specifically because public works officials noticed the calls were from the same source.
The box has generated at least 59 reports of human or animal feces since the beginning of this year — that’s about one complaint every other day. And the city continues to allocate resources to it, which raises questions about the effectiveness of the 311 reporting system and how it is used by Public Works.
The Standard recently visited the site on a Tuesday morning and found relatively clear pavement and no excrement. Residents at a nearby condominium complex took their dogs for morning walks, particularly when picking up the animals, and the only litter in sight was a pile of neatly discarded cardboard boxes.
However, the street is not without real cleanliness issues. Almost every day, workers at a nearby restaurant use electricity to flush an alcove next to the restaurant, often used as a toilet, public works officials said. The restaurant owners also say that garbage is constantly lying around their premises.
Operated by Public Works, this pit stop is located in Bayview. There are at least seven of these buildings in the Tenderloin neighborhood, where the street droppings problem is most evident. | Liz Lindqwister/The Standard
“The fact that there is a staffed public restroom nearby suggests the issue may be more complex in terms of the person or persons using that area as a restroom,” the Public Works spokeswoman said , Rachel Gordon.
Public Works and 311 officials say their agencies handled the duplicate calls at Oakdale Ave. Investigate 1615.
The really shittiest street in SF?
Bayview residents said they were surprised to hear the area around Oakdale Avenue and Third Street was a 311 fecal hotspot, but said crime and garbage disposal are on the corner, which is across from a busy Muni station , can be a problem.
In fact, Public Works operates a public restroom known as the Pit Stop near the intersection. The man who runs it, who only wanted to give his first name, Justin, said fecal problems at the Bayview aren’t as intense as in other parts of the city.
“It won’t be as bad as downtown, like the tenderloin,” he said. “That’s where [Pit Stops] really handy.”
Street cleaners from the Department of Public Works clean streets in San Francisco in October 2021. | Sophie Bearman/The Standard
According to 311, some of San Francisco’s most fecal-riddled streets are in the Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods. The Tenderloin in particular has publicly struggled to help its growing homeless population and address its filthy streets.
“It’s awful; that street is covered,” said Joe Souza, a Tenderloin resident who has lived on Larkin Street for a year. “There’s poop everywhere. You can always see it on the wall and in front of the garage over there.”
A four-block zone in the tenderloin between Larkin and Taylor streets has seen dozens of 311 fecal-related cleaning requests over the past five months. But residents say the problem is far bigger than what the data shows.
“We’ll clean up five of them [feces] per week,” said Bekzod Ochilov, manager of Halal Dastarkhan, an Uzbek restaurant on the corner of Larkin and Sutter streets. “The government should fine people who do this; We have to keep the city clean.”
The city has responded to concerns about cleanliness in the Tenderloin by instituting new cleaning programs and constructing seven neighborhood pit stops, which may have contributed to the declining calls related to fecal matter in the Tenderloin in 2022. And the neighborhood’s Community Benefit District has responded to thousands of street cleaning requests over the past two years.
But some residents fear that’s not enough, especially when concerns about street cleanliness reflect the city’s persistent problems like homelessness, mental illness and drug use.
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A Clean City in the Tenderloin team member uses electricity to wash the pavement on Hyde Street in the Tenderloin on January 31, 2015. | Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
“The poop everywhere is awful, and it’s really everywhere,” said Nina Buthee, a 20-year-old resident of the neighborhood. “If someone shot up or something, we all reported it. But it doesn’t surprise me that there are so many 311 calls.”
So far in 2023, the city has received more than 1,322 calls to remove fecal matter from the tenderloin.
Data can’t tell us everything
Although 311 service calls can highlight areas that may need special attention, the data doesn’t tell the whole story. It can even tempt city officials to waste precious resources on situations like 1615 Oakdale Ave.
The stark difference between Bayview’s most-reported location and a besieged Tenderloin street shows how excessive 911 calls or duplicate requests can skew reality and are only an imperfect gauge for tracking the city’s cleanliness problem.
The propensity to report issues such as trash and fecal matter, for example, seems to vary by neighborhood.
“We’ve seen some geographic issues where some neighborhoods or people are more likely to use the 311 system than other neighborhoods, so it can get a little skewed,” Gordon said. “We know that [311] hasn’t been used that much at the Bayview but there might be an owner, a resident who uses it.”
The corner of Oakdale Avenue and Third Street in San Francisco saw the highest number of 311 fecal-related calls in 2022. | Liz Lindqwister/The Standard
The residents of 1615 Oakdale Ave. did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
As San Francisco continues to complain about dirty streets or feces on its sidewalks, the city is quietly struggling to keep up. The Public Works Department aims to respond to 95% of cleaning requests within two days. However, since January this year, just over three-quarters of street and sidewalk cleaning inquiries have been answered within two days.
According to Gordon, delays are mainly due to a shortage of manpower and the sheer volume of all 311 calls, which range from cleaning requests to parking tickets, and average 60,000 calls per month.
“It’s harder to figure out if [service calls] are duplicate requests or different requests occurring in the same block,” Gordon said. “We are working with 311 to get as much accurate information as possible, but there will be some duplicate requests.”
