Some panhandling moms have homes in East Bay
The recent news that a homeless mother was panhandling with her 6-week-old baby every day on Market Street generated an outpouring of response, some of it questioning whether other panhandling moms spotted around downtown had similarly distressing stories.
While the story of Megan Doudney and her baby is very real and heartrending, some other moms are not quite what they seem.
San Francisco police Cmdr. David Lazar worked as captain at Central Station until February and said that in that capacity, he met at least a dozen women who had homes in the East Bay but rode BART into the city to panhandle with children at their sides. Sometimes the children weren’t even theirs, he said.
“They have the children with them in an effort to get people to donate money or other items to them thinking they’re homeless with a child, and they’re not,” Lazar said.
He said the women would
often hold signs reading, “Homeless — need help.” He’d ask them if they needed social services, medical care, help caring for their children or other assistance.
“They would say, ‘No, we’re fine,’ ” he said. “I would say, ‘Well, are you staying in a shelter?’ Nine times out of 10, they would say, ‘Oh no. I have a home. I live in Union City or Fremont, and I’m just here for the afternoon.’ ”
Jeff Kositsky, director of the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said he’s met several moms posing as homeless — including one who traveled from Sacramento. His office is flooded with calls from compassionate people every time a homeless-looking parent with a child shows up on the streets.
“Not that they don’t need help and not that we’re not sympathetic to anybody who needs to be out on the street trying to raise money that way,” Kositsky said. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re homeless or need services from our homeless delivery system that is already quite taxed as it is.”
As with Doudney, there’s hardly ever legal justification for removing the children from the women. Child welfare workers will remove a child only if there’s evidence of abuse or neglect, or if the child isn’t growing properly because of malnourishment or other health issues. Being homeless, or pretending to be, doesn’t qualify.
By the way, Doudney and her baby are still sleeping at Hamilton Family Shelter, where they have access to three meals a day. She has started accepting some help including the shelter’s free baby formula.
In a sign of just how interlinked many of San Francisco’s most vexing problems are, a big reason for the recent uptick in 911 calls and the resulting slow pace of answering them is the city’s rash of car break-ins.
In the last week of July, an average of 132 people every day called 911 to report break-ins to their cars. But if you see that telltale sprinkling of broken window glass on the ground next time you return to your parked car, consider this: More often than not, police won’t respond if you call 911 to report it.
In that last week of July, police were dispatched on an average of 55 car break-in calls a day. The other 77? Nope. In general, police will respond if the break-in is in progress, if there’s information about the suspect or if a weapon or passport has been stolen from the car.
Otherwise, call 311, file a police report online or visit your local police station to file one.
“Call 911 if you see the person breaking into the car,” Lazar said. “Do not call 911 if you see the glass.”
Better yet, try to avoid your car getting broken into in the first place: Leave nothing visible inside.
“There are groups of individuals traveling throughout the city at any time of the day who are looking in the windows and looking for valuables left in the cars,” Lazar said. “People leave laptops, they leave jewelry, they leave luggage, they leave cash, they leave passports and credit cards.”
Lazar said tourists from abroad once had $17,000 in cash stolen from their rental car. And you thought the tourists who wear shorts and tank tops in August were silly.
It once seemed that homelessness was the most divisive subject in San Francisco. No longer, dear readers. It’s Karl the Fog.
My column interviewing the “mistery” man or woman behind the Twitter account professing to be from the fog itself generated a huge response. The younger, social-media-savvy types called it brilliant. Some older, longtime San Franciscans were downright outraged. Yes, by a parody Twitter account.
Rodger Raino, who has lived in the city since 1975, wrote, “Please stop promoting this foolishness that the fog is named Karl.” He then repeated nine times, “The fog is NOT named Karl.” Well, 10 times if you count the email subject line.
I asked him if the fog has a name. “No,” he responded. “It’s just called the fog.”
One reader condemned the “Trumpian attempt” to force people to call the fog Karl, and another said, “A pox on you and your millennial house for this abomination.” Tell us how you really feel! Also, thanks for thinking I’m anywhere near young enough to be a Millennial!
Dennis Green, on the other hand, loves the Karl phenomenon so much that he’s really running with it. He just opened a furniture, home goods and jewelry store in Presidio Heights that he’s named — you’ll never believe it — Karl the Store.
“The younger people say, ‘Oh, that’s really great — I know Karl the Fog!’ ” said Green, 70, who lives in Sausalito. “The older people go, ‘I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never heard people refer to it as Karl the Fog.’ I say, ‘Well, you learn something new every day.’ ”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.