I wanted to review and share how the FairWestWork cleanup went last week (7/29/26)
Kevin, Mateo and I were out around 8am with 15 trash bags (left with about 2), some trash grabbers, and other basic tools loaded on our cart. I had talked with a handful of people camping in the area a few days before about interest in helping so I checked in Melissa, Norman and Abraham. As is often the case, even with humble offers of monetary compensation, interest and motivation hard to schedule and hard to produce on demand so I mostly distributed trash bags and heard about what they intended to clean and do with their day. I frequently find trash bags used and filled with trash on a subsequent visit.
I didn’t end up paying anyone extra to help that day, but in the past week I’ve encountered 2 people (Joseph and Julia) who have picked up needles and trash from the outside of the Fox building and I agreed to pay them upon filling one trash bag. I returned later in the day to see if they cleaned and filled the bags. They did clean and left the bags but I wasn't able to find them around. I keep a spreadsheet of who still needs to be paid.
Kevin and I did a pass in front of the Fox building's entrance and around the parking lot.
Sad to say, there was a large bowel movement and what appeared to be feces smeared into words on a column that we were not prepared to clean. Do you call 311 for this? I put in an online 311 submission , but haven't revisited yet to see if or how it was resolved.
Kevin started working on a big pile of trash near the south east entrance to the parking lot of the 2 towers while I walked around Madeira grabbing needles and talking. I collected 30 to 40.
We left trash bags on the west side of the Madeira, but upon revisiting days later, it doesn’t seem like solid waste is grabbing them when they do camp sweeps. I want to try to coordinate with solid waste to have a designated section for street trash collection. I don't know how solid waste will respond to this request, but hopefully we can establish an understanding so that if we put trash bags in a certain location that they’ll be collected. This may require some persistence and compromise. We'll see!
Kevin and I will be back out cleaning, chatting and evolving our efforts on Wed morning (8/12) from 8am until 11 starting at Madeira/Domingo
Also, there’s an event tomorrow called Dignity Day happening at copper and San Pedro. Somehow I got an email about it. An assortment of local service providers aimed at helping people survive and get off of the streets are supposed to be there from 9 until 2 so I’m going to spread the word along Domingo/Madeira, best as i can, Sun morning. I’ll also be attending to make connections and better understand what organizations are offering and how to leverage the worthwhile resources. More info to follow, I expect.
