Hundreds of calls to the city’s 311 system with complaints about human feces on public and private property motivated officials to fund a cleanup effort earlier this year. The City Council unanimously passed an ordinance in February with $100,000 in start-up funds for a so-called “poop patrol.”
But knowing the funds would quickly be depleted — officials say the $100,000 was drained in a few months — the bill also directed Mayor Tim Keller’s administration to develop an ongoing program to address the problem. Human feces removal and cleanup is now overseen by the city’s Environmental Health Department (EHD) and is funded from its budget.
EHD’s Deputy Director Terrance Smith said that removal and cleanup requests are on the rise and that the costs are significant.
“The growth has been tremendous as far as 311 calls,” he said.
Smith said Albuquerque biohazard company Specialized General Services (SGS) has been under contract since April 1 to handle the requests. He said more than $100,000 has been spent so far, but that exact figures, including for the most recent month of August, weren’t immediately available.
Smith said when a request is called into 311, the department vets it to ensure it’s appropriate to route to the company.
“We try to get [the information] out to the contractor as soon as possible, within 24 to 48 hours, and they take it from there,” Smith said.
He said SGS employees wear protective gear and are trained in proper disposal techniques and the use of specialized equipment.
“There’s a standard for the handling and disposal of bio waste. It’s got to be dealt with in a certain way and the city recognizes the public safety hazard,” Smith said. “We’re taking measures to make sure that we can try to keep the public as safe as possible by trying to clean it up as quickly as possible.”
No sign of slowing down
The issue is one of public health, as there are an estimated 5,000 people living on the streets in Albuquerque with limited access to reliable restroom facilities. On many occasions, people relieve themselves outside — in alleyways and behind vegetation — and in other areas on public and private property.
City Councilor Tammy Fiebelkorn, co-sponsor of the measure with City Councilor Nichole Rogers, said she’d hoped to kick-start a discussion among city officials about how expensive ongoing removal and cleanup is and the longer-term need for more public restroom facilities and housing options.
The city’s only 24/7, 365-day-a-year public restroom is located in Fiebelkorn’s district at the Uptown Transit Center — a Portland Loo. The Loos are popular in many cities for the ease of maintenance and cleaning, and features that help curtail sexual activity and drug use.
Fiebelkorn and others, like the Bernalillo County Health Equity Council, say the issue is not only about public health, but also one of safety and human dignity.
“The idea that we can somehow regulate people’s bodily functions is just crazy,” she said. “People have to use the bathroom.”
Fieblekorn said that while her constituents regularly contact her about the problem, most show some empathy.
“They’ll say: ‘Councilor, there was a woman by my porch and she went to the bathroom,’” she said. “Yeah, because it’s private. I mean, can you imagine how scary it is to be in public, you have to go, and you’re literally removing your clothes? I would seek out behind bushes or an alley as well.”
Building 24/7 restrooms for the homeless population in Albuquerque is a mistake. They would be sympathy bathrooms paid for by us working tax payers that the homeless on street drugs would not appreciate and would immediately destroy and use as a home and kill each other over. The actual public would never step foot in a restroom like that. There will be fentynol foil, needles and empty booze bottles, pee and poop on the floors and walls and clogged toilets. Really City of Albuquerque? Remove the homeless people. Give us our public spaces back. Don’t take your kids to any parks in Albuquerque because they are being used and will continue to be used by the homeless as places to abuse drugs and the place to pee and poop. The government is allowing this to happen to us. With opened borders do you think this problem will get worse? It will get worse. This may only be the tip of the iceberg now that all the cartel people are given free access to inland USA to ruin the local people. Too bad, too bad. We are at 3rd world country status and worse. The homeless on drugs are blind to all the money and resources so it goes to waste. Prove me wrong. The money should go to educating our youth on how to maintain mental and physical wellbeing. Instead they are bombarded with junk food and ruined entertainment, the catalyst for trying street drugs. Money in the cartels pockets. Your chasing that money with tax payers money. It’s wasted money. More than is accounted for. The worst part is we are losing our youth.
Time to maych the DNA and hold the offenders A countable, we have the technology….