Posted on 05/01/2018 11:44:11 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
California highway maintenance workers express safety concerns dealing with homeless cleanup.
As California's homeless population skyrockets, the cost of cleaning up the state's numerous shanty towns is also hitting record highs -- and the price tag is likely to keep rising as workers tasked with tossing the vagrants' syringes, feces and buckets of urine fight for safer conditions.
The Golden State's homeless population of more than 130,000 people is now about 25 percent of the nationwide total, and cleaning up after the surging group is getting costly.
In an official grievance filed last week, the union representing California's maintenance workers accused the state of subjecting its members to hazardous conditions without proper training or equipment.
Maintenance crews often have to work in areas where the ground is muddy, slippery and ridden with debris that can include objects that are exceedingly sharp. Other items are simply dangerous to touch, such as potentially toxic or biologically unsafe materials.
"Feces and urine and feminine products and all kinds of things on the ground; needles, syringes, you know they use buckets, five-gallon buckets for toilets and it gets really disgusting," he said.
Besides the prospect of touching dangerous material, workers are also confronted with the open hostility from the "residents" of the encampments they are trying to clear.
"Sometime they have pit bulls in there. They'll, you know, let the dogs loose to chase the Caltrans workers out," Crouch said. "Sometimes they'll throw rocks at the Caltrans workers."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Nothing like the good old Socialist Jobs program.
See... The homeless are creating jobs.
Whatever happened to the vagrancy laws?
...and talking about cesspools. Just commented on the demise of Seattle. Beautiful California is suffering far worse. They need a revolution in the state to throw out the Democrats, get a new prop to ban sanctuary cities, restore 2nd amendment (and 1st), and do something with the homeless. Hey, maybe kick out the millions of illegal aliens and they can clean up the place, make room for legal citizens. And the seriously homeless who are US citizens, don’t know. Can’t ship them off somewhere (maybe to Pelosi Drive in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park?), should put most of them in mental institutions.
Head, Cali has turd world problems.
Yea, a paper dust mask, porous gloves and no safety glasses just ain’t gonna cut it.
I’d say a Tyvek suit and respirator would be more in order. Of course, those are extremely uncomfortable.
Impenetrable gloves and waterproof boots is probably the most important PPE.
"He warned that once fecal matter dries, it can become airborne, releasing potentially dangerous viruses, such as the rotavirus. “If you happen to inhale that, it can also go into your intestine,” he said." "“The contamination is … much greater than communities in Brazil or Kenya or India,” he said."
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Diseased-Streets-472430013.html
Buckets of feces are 100% renewable biofuel, are they not?
So, now is the time to incarcerate the vagrants, and let them clean up the messes of other vagrants, supervised by a "union" "leader" as the reward for his/her lucky position of bargaining with the system. No cleanup, no pay.
Should be HazMat folks not highway workers. They pick up the other trash.
Forcibly remove them and house them in camps in the desert....
Interesting...thank you. Guess no one has to show a visible means of support anymore either.
I’d be ashamed to admit that I could piss into a 1.5 liter bottle.
The same thing that happened to the immigration laws.
Something for robots.
Yes but they are but they make your car run Like chit
Wow! What a great experiment.
Give left wing wackos the biggest state in the union and see how fast they can turn it into a giant Detroit!
Don’t they realize if they feed them they will come. If you house them they will come. If you clean up their mess even more will come. Now they cry that the city has become a 5th world Hell-Hole and wonder why? Typical liberals....they wonder why and then abandon their responsibilities of promoting and making that cesspool happen. However, when they get in their fancy car and drive home to their fancy home they can at least feel “warm and fuzzy” because they fed the animals for one more day.
Somewhere in the U.K., there’s a prototype street lamp that is powered by dog poop deposited by dog-walkers. California could embrace this poop-powered technology on a regional (or larger) scale. Jerry should implement that plan ASAP, it’s the perfect way to leave a Brown mark on the state!
Now, this may not comport with standard FR sentiment, but the issue has nothing to do with housing costs, illegals or even (un)employment.
Rather, the growing homeless population is a result of the wholesale closing of mental institutions, both in Calif and elsewhere. Since Calif has pleasant weather and currently relaxed policing standards, the nations's homeless gravitate here.
However, to be perfectly honest, these people are walking alcoholic & drug addicted zombies. Even the traditional "able bodied, clear thinking" hobo (maybe 25% max) is still a weird, screwed up, sketchy, unfit substance abuser.
Now, whether mental illness caused them to turn to drugs & alcohol, or whether their various addictions caused permanent brain damage, the end result is the same: we have a huge number of people who should be institutionalized.
Now, I understand that this perhaps also doesn't appeal to FR opinion, but the truth is, societies throughout the ages have had to deal with some % of the population, that for whatever reasons, happened to get screwed on the genetic lottery and were essentially "born losers".
These poor bums were the scrawny, ugly, un-athletic, unintelligent losers you may have noticed in HS. 20-30 years later (few are older than 50 - it's not a long-term survival strategy), they're digging out of garbage cans trying to collect recycling, mumbling to themselves, greasy, sunburned and completely incapable (or unconcerned) about caring for themselves.
This is the bottom line, and any criticism that avoids this point is simply dancing around the problem. Trump has repeatedly said on many issues that the core elements aren't difficult to understand & correct. Rather, through intention or stupidity, problems are left to fester until someone steps up and points out the obvious fix.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.