ROASTED: The "Golden" Age of America - Go Fund My Toilet!

 

#USA #America #Trump 

The 73% Urban Share In her seminal study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), lead researcher Dr Katie Meehan and her team found that 73% of all U.S. households lacking complete plumbing are located within metropolitan areas.

https://sbs.arizona.edu/news/plumbing-poverty-us-cities

Topics in the video:

Why is India a Mess? Raw Breakdown For The Toilet Trolls

https://nehakulkarni108.blogspot.com/2026/10/raw-breakdown-for-toilet-trolls.html

USA: Human waste - The Context of Straight-Piping in Texas

https://nehakulkarni108.blogspot.com/2026/10/usa-human-waste-context-of-straight.html

USA: The Pet Waste Dilemma & Homelessness Crisis

https://nehakulkarni108.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-pet-waste-dilemma-homelessness.html

73% of all U.S. Households Lacking Complete Plumbing Are Located Within Metropolitan Areas

https://nehakulkarni108.blogspot.com/2026/10/73-of-all-us-households-lacking.html

Where Do They Go to the Bathroom?

• Buckets and Bags: Many urban renters living in unplumbed apartments or informal sub-lets utilize "dry toilets"—essentially bucket systems lined with plastic bags. The waste is then tied up and disposed of in standard outdoor municipal trash bins.

• Outhouses and Straight-Piping: In distressed rural areas like the Texas colonias or parts of Appalachia, outdoor pit latrines (outhouses) are still used. In some extreme cases, homes utilize "straight-piping," where a crude pipe channels toilet waste directly out of the house and dumps it raw into nearby ditches, backyards, or streams.

• Shared Neighborly Networks: Many families rely entirely on the goodwill of nearby relatives or neighbors, walking to adjacent homes to use their facilities.

How Do They Manage Basic Washing?

Maintaining personal hygiene without running water or a shower is an exhausting, physically demanding task:

• The "Sponge Bath" Protocol: Residents frequently purchase large plastic jugs of bottled water from grocery stores. They heat this water on kitchen hotplates or stoves, pouring it into basins or sinks to perform sponge baths.

• Gyms and Community Centers: Those who can afford a low-cost monthly gym membership (like Planet Fitness) often use it primarily as a secure place to access a daily hot shower. Others rely on local homeless shelters or community day centers that offer designated hygiene hours.

• Laundromats and Bottled Water: Washing clothes at home becomes impossible. Families must budget heavily for public laundromats, and daily tasks like washing hands, brushing teeth, and rinsing dishes are carefully rationed using bottled water.

Extra Links:

https://usafacts.org/articles/us-households-with-plumbing-poverty/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiuEG6PvsTI

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AppalachianAmericans/posts/10161406548288648/

https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/civil-engineering-magazine/article/2022/09/initiative-launched-to-aid-us-areas-without-wastewater-treatment

https://www.ajtmh.org/view/journals/tpmd/97/5/article-p1623.xml

https://www.facebook.com/16NewsNow/posts/nine-kids-were-removed-from-what-investigators-describe-as-appalling-and-unsafe-/1444075694525717/

Child neglect and criminal confinement charges have been filed against two Delaware County parents after police allegedly found their four children living in deplorable conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhD00HljED8

https://www.kalw.org/2026-05-18/sidewalk-stories-how-do-unhoused-people-manage-illegal-dumping

https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1hkxpyp/illegal_dumping_gone_amok_in_the_san_francisco/

https://sfstandard.com/2024/12/07/san-franciscos-street-poop-problem-worse/

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/at-least-50-children-were-separated-from-their-parents-after-becoming-homeless-in-2022-23-85600

https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/11/17/if-i-wasnt-poor-i-wouldnt-be-unfit/family-separation-crisis-us-child-welfare

https://www.facebook.com/jimenezfirm/videos/what-qualifies-as-unsafe-living-conditions-in-a-texas-child-custody-or-terminati/2341677526368618/

https://www.childwelfare.gov/resources/grounds-involuntary-termination-parental-rights-texas/

https://tcf.org/content/report/power-failure-rising-energy-debt-is-climbing-into-the-middle-class/

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/research/2026/10/06/surging-water-costs-amid-the-us-affordability-crisis/

https://www.moneyandmentalhealth.org/publications/connection-lost/

https://www.foxnews.com/us/plastic-bag-filled-with-20-pounds-of-feces-plopped-on-san-francisco-sidewalk-report

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/697b999be95588540ee9a717

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13409012/

https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1ocb8vg/psa_philly_sanitation_does_not_pick_up_poo_bags/

73% of all U.S. Households Lacking Complete Plumbing Are Located Within Metropolitan Areas

 

The exact findings break down as follows:

• The 73% Urban Share: In her seminal study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), lead researcher Dr Katie Meehan and her team found that 73% of all U.S. households lacking complete plumbing are located within metropolitan areas. This dispelled the long-held myth that plumbing poverty is an exclusively rural or isolated issue. [1, 2, 3]
• The 47% Concentration: The exact same peer-reviewed study established that nearly half (47%) of all unplumbed households in the country are concentrated specifically within the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas. [1, 2]

Why These Metrics Surprised Researchers

When the data was first published, it shifted the entire conversation on water insecurity in America. For decades, federal infrastructure spending heavily prioritized laying pipes in tiny rural towns with populations under 1,000. [1, 2, 3]

However, this data proved that the modern crisis is heavily driven by urban housing affordability. The 47% concentration in major cities doesn't exist because those cities lack water main lines; it exists because low-income renters are being squeezed into substandard apartments, illegal sub-lets, or manufactured homes where landlords refuse to maintain the indoor plumbing, or where water utilities have been disconnected due to unpaid bills. [1, 2, 3]

According to the latest longitudinal data published in Nature Cities and PNAS by Dr Katie Meehan’s research team at King's College London, the problem is no longer confined just to a few historically under-plumbed areas. [1]

Since the 2008 global financial crash and intensifying through recent years, plumbing poverty has been expanding in scope and severity across a much broader and more diverse typology of American cities. [1]

The data tracks two distinct patterns: the specific cities where the problem is surging and expanding the fastest, and the cities that maintain the highest percentage baseline of households cut off from water infrastructure.

1. Cities Where Plumbing Poverty is Expanding the Fastest

The newest research reveals that the crisis has broken out of the traditional "coastal elite" tech hubs and is growing rapidly in cities experiencing modern, severe housing affordability crises and a "reproductive squeeze" (stagnant wages coupled with spiking living costs). [1]

The cities seeing the sharpest upward trajectories and surges in recent years include: [1]

• Phoenix, Arizona
• Houston, Texas
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Birmingham, Alabama
• Nashville, Tennessee [1, 2, 3]

In these fast-growing metros, the issue is heavily driven by working-poor renters and utility shut-offs. Landlords pricing out low-income tenants or refusing to invest in mandatory pipe maintenance has caused unplumbed numbers to rise. [1, 2, 3]

2. Cities with the Highest Overall Rates (Proportion)

When measuring the percentage of a city's total housed population that lacks basic hot and cold running water or indoor bathing facilities, a distinct group of wealthy, high-inequality cities leads the nation: [1, 2]

National Rank	Metropolitan Area	Key Data Insight from the Research
#1	San Francisco, CA	Holds the highest proportion in the U.S. (affecting 0.9% of all households). Renters make up 90% of these cases, and unplumbed Black households spiked by 50%.
#2	Portland, OR	One of the fastest-worsening profiles; heavily tied to renters paying 40-50% of their income on rent for substandard dwellings.
#3	Milwaukee, WI	Experiencing deep structural disparities. The average unplumbed family here spends roughly 49% of their monthly income on rent alone.
#4	San Antonio, TX	High relative numbers driven by stark geographic divides and historical infrastructure gaps.
#5	Austin, TX	A booming tech economy that has simultaneously created a massive wealth gap, accelerating plumbing poverty since 2000.

3. The Sheer Population Centers

While the cities above have the worst rates or fastest growth, the absolute highest number of individual people trapped in plumbing poverty remains concentrated in America's largest, most expensive hubs: [1]

New York City: Continues to lead the nation with an estimated 65,000 individuals living in homes without complete indoor plumbing.

---

Los Angeles: Follows closely behind, with over 44,200 people living in unplumbed conditions. [1, 2]

The Disproportionate Racial Impact

A core conclusion of Dr Meehan's research is that the urban expansion of plumbing poverty is profoundly racialised. In 12 of the 15 largest U.S. cities, people of colour represent the vast majority of those living without running water. For example, the share of unplumbed residents who are individuals of colour stands at 82% in Los Angeles, 79% in Miami, 74% in San Francisco, and 71% in Houston. [1, 2]

USA: The Pet Waste Dilemma & Homelessness Crisis

The issue of human and animal waste on city streets is a significant urban sanitation challenge that impacts many major U.S. cities, rather than just one isolated location.

However, the two links you provided highlight two completely different sides of this problem: domestic pet waste management failures and systemic homelessness/infrastructure crises.

The reality of how this problem scales across the country breaks down into these distinct categories:

1. The Pet Waste Dilemma (The Philadelphia Post)

The Philadelphia Reddit post touches on a widespread friction point in almost every dense U.S. city: dog owners discarding plastic "poo bags" into municipal street bins or directly onto the street.

• Why it happens: Many major cities (including Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago) have strict municipal codes stating that regular city street-sweepers or standard household trash collectors will not sort or accept loose dog waste bags due to biohazard rules.
• The result: Confused or careless pet owners frequently pile bags next to public trash cans or drop them down storm drains, leading to localized neighborhood complaints about odor and litter.

2. The Infrastructure & Homelessness Crisis (The San Francisco Article)

The shocking Fox News report regarding a "20-pound bag of feces" dumped in San Francisco highlights a far more severe, structural issue. When human waste is found in large quantities on city streets, it is directly tied to a lack of public bathroom infrastructure paired with high rates of unsheltered homelessness. [1, 2]

This is not exclusive to San Francisco; it is actively tracked in multiple major cities:

• San Francisco, CA: The city’s 311 service line famously handles tens of thousands of "human waste" cleanup requests annually. It became severe enough that the city launched a dedicated, mobile "Pit Stop" public toilet program to curb the issue. [1, 2]
• Los Angeles, CA: The Skid Row district has faced documented public health crises, including a severe hepatitis A outbreak fueled directly by a lack of accessible public toilets and clean running water for the unhoused population.
• Seattle, WA & Portland, OR: Both Pacific Northwest hubs struggle with biohazard cleanups around unsheltered encampments, prompting cities to deploy specialized rapid response cleaning crews to clear sidewalks.
• San Diego, CA: Similar sanitation gaps forced the city to aggressively power-wash sidewalks with bleach solutions following public health emergencies tied directly to outdoor human waste accumulation.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/plastic-bag-filled-with-20-pounds-of-feces-plopped-on-san-francisco-sidewalk-report

https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1ocb8vg/psa_philly_sanitation_does_not_pick_up_poo_bags/