I'm sure Seattle is trying to "help" just like SanFran is.
"Terrified" San Francisco Tourists Shocked By Aggressive Vagrants, Discarded Needles, Dead Bodies
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06- ... edles-dead
"The streets are filthy. There's trash everywhere. It's disgusting," Joe D'Alessandro, president of S.F. Travel told the Chronicle's Heather Knight in April. "I've never seen any other city like this — the homelessness, dirty streets, drug use on the streets, smash-and-grabs."
The city, which hands out up to 4.8 million syringes each year, has struggled to figure out how to keep streets clean and safe for residents, while accommodating a growing homeless population and longstanding HIV and Hepatitis C epidemics. There are roughly 16,000 residents in San Francisco with HIV, and 13,000 with Hep C.
City Health Director Barbara Garcia estimated in 2016 that there were 22,000 intravenous drug users in San Francisco - around one for every 38.9 residents, while the city hands out roughly 400,000 needles per month.
Of the 400,000 needles distributed monthly, San Francisco receives around 246,000 back - meaning that there are roughly 150,000 discarded needles floating around each month - or nearly 2 million per year, according to Curbed.
Mayor Mark Farrell has said, repeatedly, in recent weeks that the problem of discarded syringes on city streets has become a sticking point for him, and the city promised millions of dollars to curb the problem of hazardous waste on sidewalks and streets.
Meanwhile, San Francisco Chronicle’s Matier and Ross chimed in Wednesday with an uncomfortable observation: Most of the needles littering streets in downtown neighborhoods came by way of the city itself, as part of the Department of Public Health’s 25-year-old needle exchange program. -Curbed
"Millions of dollars" promised to help "curb the problem of hazardous waste" - created by handing out free needles, 2 million a year of which end up on the streets... Hmm. Who pays for those needles? Who pays to clean them up? Why are they paying to both create a hazard and then clean it up??