San Francisco is known for its sights: the setting sun shimmering on the Golden Gate as pelicans soar between wisps of cloud, rows of Edwardians stacked together like macarons in a pastry box, and, of course, big human turds on the sidewalk.
Intractable as it is, the street poop problem would be even worse if not for 30 freestanding public toilets staffed by attendants, some around the clock. These include the self-cleaning green units downtown, concrete-block park bathrooms, white trailers, and a handful of stinky gray porta-potties.
The toilets, provided through the Department of Public Works’ Pit Stop program, are popular — the city recorded more than 750,000 visits in the last nine months, an average of nearly 2,800 per toilet per month. But because of the program’s budget ($14 million for fiscal year 2025) and the mayor’s mandate that departments cut their budgets by 15%, DPW is considering reducing hours at some locations and closing others entirely.
The proposed budget for toilets in fiscal year 2026 is $5.7 million — 59% lower than the current budget, which includes about $4 million in rollover funds from last year.
Will that lead to an uptick in Code Brown calls? DPW hopes not and is analyzing data to identify the least-used pit stops for potential closure. But even the toilets that saw the fewest butts on seats have welcomed thousands of visitors since July, and it’s not hard to imagine some of those backsides taking their business streetside if those facilities were to close.
Some might wonder why $5.7 million isn’t enough to operate 30 toilets for a year. Fair question, but a comparison to similar programs in other cities shows SF’s budget is not unusual. Miami allocated $100,000 per month for just four toilets that were open only seven hours a day — a considerably higher hourly cost. Los Angeles is working with a $4.1 million budget for 16 toilets, along with public showers and other hygiene programs.
So San Francisco’s proposed budget is relatively lean. And a reduced Pit Stop budget could mean job cuts for staffers, all of whom are employed through workforce development programs and many of whom are trying to get their lives back on track after serving prison time.
‘We’re doing a service’
One of these workers, Guadalupe DeLeon, spends a few days each week seated outside a pit stop in City Hall Plaza, tallying visitors and answering questions. It may not be everybody’s dream job, especially at $20 an hour, but for the graying and gregarious DeLeon, working for the program is “terrific.”
“I started doing Pit Stop as an excuse to get out of the halfway house on weekends,” DeLeon said. He added that he served 32 years in prison for a string of robberies and was released in 2023.
When he was stationed in SoMa at the Minna Street toilet, he had to save a drug user who was overdosing, he said, but the City Hall Plaza location has been relatively calm. For the most part, visitors are friendly and don’t need much supervision.
“There have been a couple of instances where I’ve had to open the door and request, rather vehemently, that somebody leave,” DeLeon said. But he makes friends every day. “I know no stranger.”
DeLeon is one of more than 100 workers who staff the 30 Pit Stop toilets. All are hired through Hunters Point Family and Mission Hiring Hall, nonprofits that receive multimillion-dollar grants from DPW to monitor the stops and tally visitors.
“Right now, I’m really in shock,” Melody Daniel, Hunters Point Family’s interim executive director, said of the proposed cuts. “Anytime Hunters Point Family has cuts from the Department of Public Works, it definitely affects the monitors.”
Daniel added that hours for some toilets were cut in 2024, and the nonprofit has noticed an uptick in vandalism at some of those locations since then.
They’re expensive to maintain, but people appreciate the public bathrooms. Scott Sweed, who has been working at Franklin Square’s pit stop in the Mission for around a year, said it gets 50 to 125 visits each day.
“We’re doing a service,” Sweed said. “Stopping people from defecating in the park.”
While the program, which launched in 2014, was originally intended to provide bathrooms for homeless people, the defecation stations are also popular with office workers and shoppers. Roneel Prakash, a maintenance worker at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said he uses the U.N. Plaza toilet most days after work, before getting on BART. (The bathroom at his workplace, he explained, is often dirty.)
“I’m glad it’s here,” Prakash said while waiting in line. “There’s no other restroom anywhere else.”
Paul Kaiwi, a Pit Stop program supervisor who was recently promoted from monitor, said he wants to see more locations, not fewer.
“There is a need for more units. This is a necessity, not an accessory,” he said. “If [the budget] did get cut, it would be sad for the Tenderloin area. There are a lot of services we offer that they rely on.”
But of course, there are also objections to the facilities. Complaints via 311 from business owners and residents say pit stops scare off customers, make noise, spew gas fumes, and draw an unsavory cast of lavatory lovers.
“The generator that runs the pit stop toilet was turned on at 4 a.m., and the unit was filled with fumes. Tenant [woke] up choking to carbon monoxide and vomited. They also had a headache all day,” reads one 2024 service request for a toilet in the Tenderloin. “Can they place pit stop somewhere else, where tenants’ units are not filled with fumes?”
According to a complainant who owns the Elite Inn on Turk Street, the pit stop by the hotel shielded drug dealers from the street, blocked Recology from picking up garbage bins, and made the hotel’s entrance smell like poop.
DPW looked into moving the toilet after the complaint, according to records, but the pit stop map shows it still in the same spot. Elite Inn’s former owner, Dharmesh Patel, said the public bathroom hurt his business for years.
“This thing is right there, but still, people are peeing outside,” Patel said. “They go a few feet away and take a leak on the street.”
DPW spokesperson Rachel Gordon said the department has moved some pit stops in response to resident and business concerns. On the other hand, she said, some business owners have asked for a pit stop to be installed nearby so people will stop pooping in their doorways.
‘More than a spray bottle can handle’
As with workers for any San Francisco street program, Pit Stop attendants have seen horrors. Kevin Johnson, 55, said he asked to be transferred away from the U.N. Plaza location after he found a stillborn baby in the bathroom. Now he works at the Ocean Beach bathroom, where most visitors are housed, but he still has to deal with their waste.
“We should get some kind of premium for dealing with sanitation,” Johnson said. “Sometimes it’s more than a spray bottle can handle.”
He added that toilet workers are not provided with face shields or other protective gear. (Gordon said providing PPE is the nonprofit grantees’ responsibility, but that if a DPW inspection finds that a monitor has run out of necessary supplies, the agency can provide them as a temporary stopgap.)
While Johnson spoke, a resident stopped to inform him and a coworker, Josh Graves, that a person was camped out in the women’s wheelchair-accessible stall. Graves went to investigate.
“We can’t do much more than [a wellness check],” Johnson said. If attendants smell something burning, or someone refuses to leave when asked, they call park rangers for help.
“Are you OK in there?” Graves called from outside the stall. The woman responded that she’d come out soon.
Daphne, a beachgoer who asked to withhold her last name, praised the attendants.
“They do a great job,” she said. “You really feel safer.”