SF mayor announces $11.9 million budget allocation to help keep the streets clean

SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - San Francisco's mayor is set to unveil her budget tomorrow. But, today offered a preview of where she wants to see some of that money will be spent: Keeping the city's streets clean.

One day before the budget is officially unveiled, Mayor London Breed announced $11.9 million will go to adding seven new Pit Stop bathrooms and 80 big belly garbage cans to the city in an effort to keep the streets clean.

"I want to see results. And, so that's why we're investing more in Pit Stops, so people have places to use the restroom," said Mayor Breed.

Supervisor Matt Haney, who serves the Tenderloin and South of Market Neighborhoods, welcomes the addition of new Pit Stops and trash cans.

He says currently only one of the bathrooms is open after 8 p.m., the rest are closed from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. 

"So people who are out on our streets at those times currently have no where to go to the bathroom," said Haney. "So, I'm asking the mayor to not just include more Pit Stops, but let's have them open 24 hours."

"We're extending the hours, and we're collecting data to see who's using them, and when people are using them," said Mayor Breed.

Jennifer Freidenbach from the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness says the bathrooms are an important and welcome addition.

But, she says mental health care, substance abuse treatment and more housing would reduce the number of people and waste on the streets. "We have folks, a huge housing crisis, and thousands of people without housing," said Freidenbach. "It's absolutely unacceptable that we don't have access to bathrooms."

"It has to be about housing," said Mayor Breed. "It has to be about being more aggressive with getting more housing built and cutting back on the bureaucracy that does, sadly, get in the way of housing production."

The mayor will present her full budget proposal Friday and present it to the board of supervisors.