November 2003
The Warning Signs of Extreme Poverty
Robert L. Terrell
No matter where you find it, extreme poverty has a characteristic smell.
It consists of a pungent combination of odors, including trace elements of urine, feces, sweat and rotting food. Rats, roaches, bedbugs and other noxious vermin commonly contribute acrid components.
Nonetheless, the primary binding agent of the smell of extreme poverty is the strong, unwavering scent of too many unwashed, human bodies living too close together in filthy circumstances.
Once you recognize the smell of extreme poverty for what it is, you never forget it, or the awful circumstances that invariably accompany its foul presence.
My first exposure to the smell of extreme poverty took place when I was a young child growing up in the poor, black sections of working-class Detroit area townships and bantustans.
Given those grim circumstances, I was forced to develop an intimate familiarity with the cloying stench of extreme poverty.
It lingered in and around poorly constructed, outdoor toilets perched precariously above shallow catch basins at the rear of homes, and some public buildings.
It fouled the air in the living quarters of large families, trapped in aging, crowded public housing units.
It also hovered in every corner of the premises of the sad collections of roach-filled grocery stores, musty pawnshops and greasy spoon restaurants that the poorest people in my neighborhoods foraged through on a daily basis in search of the necessities of life.
The smell of extreme poverty also poisoned the air in each of the deteriorating dwellings my family inhabited. No matter how much we washed walls, mopped floors, scoured toilets and sprayed the air, the cloying stench prevailed.
It could not be washed, swept, or sprayed away because it was melded into the fabric of our lives, and the deprived economic circumstances in which we, and others like us, were forced to subsist.
After I came of age, left the country, and lived abroad for extended periods of time, I acquired a broader, deeper understanding of the smell of extreme poverty.
For example, I became aware that every aspect of life in many nations is enveloped by the smell of extreme poverty. This is particularly the case in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and it is commonly the case in Asia. No matter how wealthy, most residents of Central and South America have no option but to be familiar with the smell of extreme poverty.
I was somewhat surprised when I detected the distinct, and unmistakable, smell while traveling through working-class sectors of wealthy, west European nations. On reflection, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because western Europe's social, political and economic hierarchies are essentially identical to the ones which prevail here in the United States, where the smell of extreme poverty is widespread and commonly encountered in most major cities.
The smell of extreme poverty was pervasive in Eastern Europe before the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s, and it was omnipresent in Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese cities throughout the period during which China paid strict adherence to Marxist economics.
Although a close reading of the historical record suggests that the smell or extreme poverty has been present in major U.S. cities throughout most of the nation's history, the foul odor was largely abolished from the sectors of society inhabited by most whites between the late 1940s and the early 1980s.
Thus, during the past quarter century or so, the nation's social, economic and political fortunes have evolved such that the smell of extreme poverty is enveloping a rapidly expanding swath of the urban, public sector. As a result, it is no longer restricted for the most part to no-go neighborhoods primarily inhabited by poor people of color.
Because I reside in San Francisco, I am particularly conscious of the ways in which the smell of extreme poverty is spreading inexorably throughout the city's commons areas. Nonetheless, I realize that San Francisco is not unique.
The smell of extreme poverty can be picked up on city streets throughout the Bay Area. Moreover, as indicated above, anyone who has traveled extensively will confirm that the same is true in much of the rest of the state and nation.
Chronic, endemic poverty is primarily responsible. And this is particularly the case in San Francisco, which is has one of the nation's most expensive housing markets. Rent for modest studios and apartments commonly exceeds two thousand dollars per month, and single family dwellings are almost never available to purchase for less than a half million dollars.
Even though San Francisco's residents earn handsome salaries on average compared with their peers in other sections of the nation, less than 15 percent of them can afford to purchase living quarters in the city. As a result, the vast majority of the city's residents are renters, and for many of them the cost of housing consumes 50 percent of after tax income.
As a result, the city has a huge, expanding population of desperately poor, homeless people. Admittedly conservative estimates acknowledge that the number of homeless living on San Francisco streets exceeds 9,000 persons. Some suggest that the number is much higher. Most important, everyone agrees that the number of homeless people in the city is increasing at a deeply troubling rate. For example, San Francisco's homeless population increased 18 percent last year.
Living without shelter, and all that it implies in terms of sanity and sanitary personal practices, the city's hapless homeless residents are forced to share their lives, as it were, with the rest of us. And a major component of that which they share is the smell of their urine, feces, sweat, rotting food and the ripe scent of their unwashed bodies. The composite odor produced by this pungent mixture wafts through the city's air in much the same gossamer fashion as the banks of cool, gray fog that flow through the Golden Gate.
Typical locations which exude the stench of extreme poverty in a concentrated, impossible to avoid, manner, include bus stations, train depots, phone booths, jails, parks, plazas, cheap theaters, freeway underpasses, foyers of abandoned buildings, intake areas at social service agencies, porn shops, greasy spoon restaurants and most public toilets.
To an extent unimaginable a decade or so ago, the smell of extreme poverty is pervasive in such places.
Nonetheless, one can easily pick up unmistakable whiffs of the smell of extreme poverty in virtually every section of San Francisco. But it is particularly present on inner city streets, and this is frequently the case when no homeless people are present.
The rancid whiffs most frequently encountered by pedestrians tend to be primarily composed of the mixed odors of grime, urine and feces. They are strongest adjacent to the locations homeless people repeatedly use to relieve themselves. The smell of such hot spots is sometimes so strong that it literally takes the breath away, sharply assailing nostrils and alerting passersby to watch their steps in order to avoid collisions with steaming piles of excrement, discarded needles, broken glass and other potentially dangerous detritus.
The overall situation is deteriorating because the number of places where homeless people can access toilets is decreasing. Bars and restaurants, which historically provided open access to restrooms, have tended in recent years to restrict use of such facilities to paying customers.
As the size of the homeless population has expanded over the years, office buildings have deployed security guards at their doors in order to keep unauthorized persons off the premises.
These days the street side portable toilets commonly provided for construction crews tend to be locked at all times. The same is true of restrooms at the few gas stations that remain in the city center. Unless one purchases gasoline, or something of value from their expensive "mini marts," most gas stations refuse access to their restrooms. As is the case with many restaurants and bars, San Francisco's gas stations commonly display signs which indicate that their restrooms are "for customers only."
Public restrooms are available in some parks, but vast swaths of the city do not have parks or plazas. This is particularly the case in sections of town formerly used for light industrial production. Huge numbers of professional people have moved into such areas in recent years in search of affordable living quarters.
They have been accompanied by waves of homeless people, who do their best to survive in the relatively Spartan settings despite the fact that these new neighborhoods contain few amenities such as grocery stores, social services, medical facilities and public toilets.
The municipal government responded to the problem of insufficient toilet options a few years ago by arranging for a relatively small number of high tech, self cleaning units to be set up on some heavily traveled streets. Unfortunately, most of those units are located in places that make them useless for the vast majority of the homeless. For example, none of the high tech toilets are situated in the South of Market District, which teems with hundreds, if not thousands, of homeless people.
As a result, doorways, street side planters and storm water catch basins are commonly used as toilets by homeless people in the South of Market district. This is also the case in other sections of town, including North Beach, Chinatown, the Mission, the Haight, the Tenderloin and the Market Street corridor, which still functions as one of the city's most important business arteries. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that the smell of extreme poverty is commonly encountered in these locations.
The street side locations where homeless people commonly eat are also distinguished by the smell of extreme poverty. Few of these locations contain trash bins. As a result, they tend to be strewn with rotting garbage and discarded, half-eaten food. They also attract hordes of buzzing flies, eager to lay eggs and produce writhing, insatiable maggots, which contribute their own distinct odor to the smell of extreme poverty.
Some of the worst smells emanate from semi-secluded areas located near popular pedestrian routes. They include recessed doorways, foyers, vacant lots and stairwells of multistory parking structures. They also include trash strewn alleys, and remote sections of roadway medians where homeless people rest, sleep, socialize and while away the time between dumpster diving runs, or begging shifts at choice, street side locations.
Excepting occasional spokespersons from public health agencies, most of who are routinely ignored by most citizens and their political representatives, San Franciscans do not normally address the smell of extreme poverty in discussions of "the homeless problem."
Nonetheless, each member of the current crop of mayoral candidates claims to possess a plan for dealing with "the homeless problem." Unfortunately, if implemented, there is little indication that their plans are expansive enough to eliminate "the homeless problem," largely because none of them address the fundamental reasons why it exists. Furthermore, none of the mayoral candidates seems to understand that 'the homeless problem" is not a temporary aberration.
It is, instead, a permanent component of the current social, economic and political order. Given this, it is important for the mayoral candidates, and the community in general, to understand that the unfortunate human beings who live and die on our streets are just as much members of "the community" as the rest of us. As such, they need to be treated with respect tempered by recognition that many of us will almost certainly be forced to join their ranks during the years immediately ahead. Respect of the appropriate sort will fortify us against the disingenuous bleating of mean-spirited public figures who urge us to adopt contemporary versions of the policies and attitudes employed by locals during the Gold Rush era period when street side carcasses of dead indigents were commonly consumed by feral dogs.
The city's leaders, particularly those who would be mayor, need to devote more time and attention to acquiring information about the manner in which hopelessness and poverty are managed in major cities around the world. If they do so, they will quickly discern that every major city in the world is struggling with a swelling population of desperately poor, homeless people.
Consultations between local authorities and their counterparts in cities that have existed for centuries longer than San Francisco will also provide them important insights.
For example, regarding the smell of extreme poverty, local leaders would learn that one of the best municipal responses is the deployment of lots of public toilets, the cleaner the better.
They would also learn that properly administered, public baths are essential in major cities with huge populations of homeless people.
For example, one of the most pleasant aspects of the renovated Ferry Building is the clean, free, safe public toilets. The mellow vibes which inspire the crowds that gather for the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market are due in part to the public toilets conveniently located inside the finely renovated landmark.
The key point to be understood is that San Franciscans, and their visitors, will continue to be bathed by the smell of extreme poverty until it has more public toilets, and an appropriate number of facilities for indigent people to clean their bodies.
The city government also needs to increase the number of street side trash receptacles, and make certain that they are readily available in locations where they are most urgently needed.
If such measures are not implemented, San Francisco will remain vulnerable to breakdowns in public health of the sort that were common a century or more ago when outbreaks of cholera and other contagious diseases swept through the city's poor neighborhoods with deadly regularity.
I am thinking as I write of last winter's SARS epidemic, which surged out of the fetid, teeming slums of South China and Hong Kong, killing hundreds of hapless victims in cities around the world. Having visited those slums several times over the past quarter century, I am familiar with the poverty which plagues the lives of the throngs of poor people who reside in them.
I am also acutely aware that living conditions in the poor neighborhoods that produced the SARS epidemic in South China and Hong Kong are in many ways startlingly similar to those that exist in the habitats of the huge, poor, homeless throng that resides on the streets of San Francisco.
Moreover, I am repeatedly reminded of the smell of those poor, Third World neighborhoods as I walk the streets of San Francisco.
This has moved me to surmise that sooner or later, SARS, or some malady with similarly deadly characteristics, is going to become implanted in this city via the vectors of neglect, avoidance, poverty and filth.
The best indication that this will occur is the ubiquitous smell of extreme poverty that currently haunts our streets.
That smell, and all that it implies in terms of human suffering and potential catastrophe, strongly suggests that we are probably living on borrowed time.